Paper Bones Don't Break
by God's Band Geek
Summary: A war is coming for Elsa and there isn't any power, nor true act of love, that can save her. (An epic that unfolds the origin of Elsa's powers.)
1. You'll love me at once

**Disclaimer: Frozen and all it's property belong to Disney.**

**An old stranger is returning home. The new scars burned on his flesh orchestrate the song of despair as his tale is bellowed into the echoing hearts of the people of Arendelle.**

**Are you ready for a real war? **

* * *

They didn't hear the knocks, or the "Hello?" The door opened slightly, but still they didn't notice, the baby was just too precious. The door opened wider. Only one man stepped in, the guards only making sure he got to the right room.

He immediately regretted his decision.

They were all so happy, gazing softly at the little infant in Anna's arms. The tiny grain of hope was dashed away at the sight of them. Should he cough? Or just say hello again?

_'I should leave. I shouldn't have come.'_ He turned around from them, he looked out the door and studied the wall paper in the hallway outside. He couldn't find the drive to move his feet even an inch. He was so tired though. He lived through a lie to come back to the truth. His muscles were crying against his skin, begging him to just fall right there and sleep. Just standing there hurt, but he came this far. He ran this far.

He turned back around. With pathetic, silent, protests of his muscles again he began to walk. His shoulders were heavy even though he shed his armor off days ago. He could still feel it digging into his flesh; his sickly, discolored flesh.

* * *

_'I know I see something over there, moving, but how can I look away from him? My little nephew. Just look over for a second, they probably won't notice.'_

She looked then she looked back at the baby. She didn't recognize him, so she didn't care anymore.

* * *

_'I know I saw her eyes flicker to me. She's not saying anything. Does she not remember me? Do I look that different? She hates me... That's the only reason she wouldn't be acknowledging me. She hates me now. She must know what I've done. If she did I'd be dead by now though. Why am I not dead?'_

* * *

_'Are they still there? Say something damn it! I'm not going to waste my time on you if you won't say anything.'_

* * *

"I- I'm sorry to intrude, but I figured now was as good a time as any." He said as loud as his weak lungs could. His breath tearing his throat apart with fire. He held a desert inside his weakened body.

* * *

'_Peter?'_

* * *

Elsa looked over at him, and really looked at him this time. That's not the same face she saw leave, but it was the only one that could carry such a voice. "Peter!" She leapt out of the bed and ran over to him, wrapping her arms around him tightly, clinging onto his tunic, inhaling his very essence, pinching her arms around him to make sure she wasn't dreaming.

* * *

_'There you go. It's me. Please, I am begging you, recognize me. Help me.'_ "Peter!" She yelled out in excitement, and he smiled as best he could, and his eyes twinkled with longing for her touch, but when she did it proved too much for him, and he began to fall down. His body smacked into the ground like a stone, but he was so tired he didn't feel the impact, he couldn't feel anymore pain than what he was already in. His eyes closed against his will and his hearing slowly faded as his name was being shrieked into the air becoming drowned in his unconsciousness. Finally, he could sleep.


	2. The way you did once

"GO! GO NOW!" A spear pierced through the slave's skull, replacing his eye. Peter started to run. By the grace of the gods he wasn't getting hit. Weapons of all sorts, be it swords, spears, or shrapnel were pummeling him, but they bounced off him like he was rubber, like he was invincible. Was he? Thought the dying as they lay freezing on the bloody, blistering ground, watching him run by unscathed by the chaos abounding.

But then Peter was on the ground. He didn't feel hurt. He was watching himself run by and he extended his arm out as far as he could to touch himself, his foot, his ankle, anything, but nothing. He was a ghost. His leg passed through his hand like fog.

His eyes slowly fluttered open and he saw blurry colors and shapes. He felt something damp and cool against his burning forehead. His lungs weren't on fire anymore, he could breathe without pain. What a marvelous sensation breath is to the dead.

"Eeda?" The faulty word was processed through his muddled mind and he tried to focus where the sound came from. It was a big white blurry fuzz, but it slowly came into focus and he saw her face getting closer. Her lips brushed his sweaty cheek, and her warm breath tickled his tattered ear, "Can you hear me?"

A deep, low groan came from his throat as a response. He meant to say yes.

"Is he awake?" A man's voice sounded from way across the room to him. Words finally sounded like words again.

"Yeah, I think he just woke."

"Do you want me to go fetch the doctor? I just passed him not too long ago."

"I already know what he'll say." She said resolutely. She didn't want to speak to whomever she was speaking to anymore, Peter was sure of that much.

"Should I tell Anna that you're not coming to dinner?"

Elsa sighed heavily, and the man knew his answer. Actually he knew it before he even asked.

"I'm sure she'd be glad to know he's awake. Can she come in later?"

"Of course." Elsa's voice was sodden with seas of guilt. She was choosing Peter over her own sister.

The man left her alone and went to Anna's room, where dinner was being served. She understood perfectly and didn't feel hurt at all.

"It's good that she was there when he woke up. She can stay there for as long as she wants and I wouldn't dream of stopping her Kristoff." Anna said cheerfully, despite the slight discomfort of little Robert's suckling. She couldn't get him to ease up, he was always so hungry.

"Just tell me, you didn't plan this like you planned them together all those years ago did you?"

"No! I wouldn't plan for Peter to faint and fall into a week long coma!"

"A week?" Peter asked as irritated as he could, only sounding extremely tired and disinterested. Elsa could see the panic in his eyes and understood his emotion that he didn't have the strength to convey.

"That first day was the worst for you. We couldn't lower your fever no matter what, but each day you've gotten progressively better, and the doctor even said there was a strong chance that you could revive today or tomorrow." She explained stroking his pale cheek. She had a permanent dent on his bed from where she sat all day, when she could get away from being the queen.

Anna was always anxious to help by either reading or writing reports, or attend meetings, or hear the people's complaints, so her sister could stay by Peter's side, but both Elsa and Kristoff denied her the pleasure since she had just given birth. Like that ever stopped her. Elsa was grateful for such a wonderful little sister.

The Great Thaw festival still took place, and Elsa attended it, she would just sneak away to take a peek at Peter, feel his pulse, rest her head on his chest to feel him breathe, kiss his dry, cracked lips. Little things.

"I didn't think I was that tired." He closed his eyes again, and felt her cool hand slip into his.

"At first I thought I had hurt you-" His eyes snapped open.

"Stop. Don't." He squeezed her hand as hard as he could to punish her. The anguish in her eyes subduing to his feeble grasp.

"Okay." She smiled at him. "I can't wait to here what happened to you." Her smile all but vanished and her voice dripped with concern.

"Trust me. You can wait."

"I don't want to. This is as good as any other time."

"What if you get swept away in the middle of my story?" He asked, no, he begged. He never wanted her to leave him so much. If that's what kept his tale inside then he wished he could never see her again. How do you tell someone you love you betrayed them?

"I'll sweep them away. Anna and Kristoff can handle it I'm sure."

"I still can't tell you." He looked away from her. Her lips parted in a silent gasp and her brow rocketed up with pain. "I won't tell you." He continued. His words seared her soul. His bruises became more prominent. His scars seemed to glow underneath his blanket.

'Don't strike his face, it could prove useful.'

A single drop of misery fell from his eye and it was the straw that broke her spirit. Elsa bent down and kissed his cheek and then whispered into his ear, "I'm glad you're back. I've missed you."

Water falls of misery poured from his eyes and he began to quake from his sobbing. Elsa lifted up, confused at his outburst, she started to think selfishly, 'Does he not love me? Is that why his letters stopped?' He covered his thoroughly soaked face with his thin, bony hands.

"That's okay. You don't have to tell me." She said tenderly to soothe his fractured heart. Then she readjusted herself to lay down next to him completely. She wanted so desperately to know what happened to this man, this man she didn't know very well, but after two long years she felt she'd known him her whole life with only three letters from him, telling her how much he loved her, ever since she first walked into his bakery. She ached inside, her bones felt like they were being pinched, ready to crack any moment.

"Damn it Elsa! I can't do this anymore! I don't want to!" He threw away his hands and roared and then he looked over at her stunned expression and his face showed the true look of despair. "Just let me die. Please, I'm begging you, kill me. I am in so much pain. Kill me. I can't see what hurts, everything does, my brain, my body, it's not the scars, it's not the scars, it's not the scars." On he sobbed once more, and Elsa quickly enveloped his battered frame in her arms and he cried shamelessly into her neck. His tears scolded her freezing skin. She was afraid. She was so afraid. She knew why.

"That's what I thought when my parents died. Anna gave me strength. Let me make you strong again. I don't care if it is selfish but damn it, I'm not going to let you want to kill yourself."

"I want to tell you why, I just can't." His tear stained voice quivered in the air.

"Then don't try."

"You wouldn't understand." He faintly whimpered, his sobbing wearing him down rapidly.

"Peter, I have power over ice and snow. I am a sorceress. There is nothing I can't understand."

"You won't forgive me." He was slipping. Black framed the edges of his vision. He was slipping.

Elsa didn't have a clue what to do, what to say, so she let him fall victim to his nightmares in her frigid arms. She was terrified.

"Elsa?" Anna called out excitedly from outside the door. "Can I come in?"

Seconds passed like days. Nothing. The ice grew more thick as Elsa's pupils constricted. Did she really just admit that she wanted to kill herself years ago to a stranger? A perfect, half dead, stranger?

"Are you even in there?" Anna asked a little bashful, but then her eyes lit up again when she finally got a response.

"Yes."

Anna opened the door with a beaming grin. Her skin erupted in goosebumps from the viscous chill that burst out and her breath caught in her throat from the shock. She eyed her sister holding a once again sleeping Peter on the bed, her sister's hard were hard as they look a thousand meters ahead. Anna rushed over to her and shook her shoulder, but nothing happened. She saw Peter's skin turn red from the sudden intense cold and so she gently pushed him away, Elsa did nothing. Anna grabbed hold of both of Elsa's shoulders and shook her again, and nothing.

"Come on Elsa! Snap out of it! What's wrong?!" Anna got on top of Elsa's lap and once again shook her violently as if to loosen the ice formed around Elsa's mind. Slowly, Elsa's blue eyes brightened back to awareness and they began to shine as fresh tears coated them with their gloss and her face scrunched up in pain and she began to bawl despite herself, despite Peter uncomfortably slumped over beside her, forgotten.

"What's wrong?" Anna pleaded, her nose burning from the pinpricks of her coming tears, fulling sitting on her sister.

"Anna." Elsa rose up, making Anna scooch back, and Elsa fiercely wound her freezing arms around her warm sister, and Anna quickly reciprocated, trying to send out her warmth as much as she could and the ice in the room stopped growing and began to recede. "I'm sorry Anna." She whispered.

"It's okay. I just wish I could've been here sooner. Maybe I could've kept you calm. What happened?" Anna lifted away, no matter how much Elsa squeezed tighter to keep her there pressed against her.

_'That's not what I'm sorry for, you stupid, precious girl.' _Elsa thought as Anna's curious eyes bored into her terrified ones.

"Peter's not well."

"We know that already. What happened?" Anna knew her big sister well enough now to know she was holding something back.

Elsa bit her lip, mulling over what to say. "He's- He doesn't w- I don't know. I just don't know. He said he wants to tell me what happened to him but he can't. He thinks it's so terrible that I'll hate him." She looked over to him, Anna's deep compassionate face was too much for her. Anna looked over at him too and her heart broke all over again.

"Do you want me to stay with you tonight? I can have a cot brought in and Robert and I can sleep in here, so you can stay by Peter. Maybe it'll help?" Anna asked looking back at her sister.

"I don't want to risk this happening again with him in here." Elsa answered in a flat voice as she saw little Robert freeze into ice in her mind.

"I could sleeping in the room across the hall then, how about that? Robert would be completely safe, and I'll be right outside if you need me." Elsa finally felt a tiny surge of courage course through her and she could look at her sister again.

"I want you with me." She said wistfully, her eyes twinkling. "I'll sleep in my room tonight. He needs space."

"I think he needs you." Anna pursued, but Elsa knew better than her.

"Trust me Anna, he doesn't want me right now." Elsa fell forward and rested her head against Anna's chest. Anna just looked over at Peter again and wondered what he could have said that made Elsa think he didn't want her. He was in her arms when she came in... Anna then lifted her sister's face up and rubbed her cheeks with her thumbs, smearing her tears all around. She didn't say anything though. Words weren't cooperating at the moment for anyone, but Elsa understood anyway.

Anna got off of Elsa and the bed and walked over to the other side and moved Peter to the center when Elsa got off too, and then she properly tucked Peter in. She gazed at him softly as the tired moon danced on his pale face, but then her view was cut off as Elsa's platinum blonde hair shone bright in the moon light as she kissed the sleeping man sweetly, as if he'd kiss her back, she was hoping for it. He didn't of course.


	3. The letters

**Here are the letters that Elsa and Peter sent to each other. Prepare your feelings now.**

* * *

Dear Elsa,

I've just made it to Sweden. I met with your consort that you had greet me when I left the ship, and I feel I am in great hands. They've taken such great care of me today! They make me feel so important, and I feel so bashful around them because they treat me like royalty. I've told them I'm not, but they say that it doesn't matter to them. Since I am such a great friend of your's I am a great friend of their's.

I was able to cook some fattigmann's for supper tonight, and they loved them just like you did, but don't worry, I didn't fall in love with them like I did you. You are the only woman in my heart. You were the first woman to ever enter my heart Elsa. I am in so much love with you, I ache at night when I'm alone. I think about that morning afterwards from Anna's birthday every night so that I may dream of you. I will write as much as I can. I love you Elsa, my queen.

With all my love,

Peter

* * *

Dear Peter,

You will ever understand how much I adore you. My face is sore from smiling all day. I received your letter early this morning during breakfast, but I couldn't respond until very late at night tonight. Anna has repeatedly pestered me all day because of my smiling, playfully mocking me daydreaming about you during a very big trades meeting today. I missed half of what was said, and honestly I couldn't care less!

I ache at night as well from missing you so much. I hope this doesn't put you off too much, but I just feel this extreme urge to tell you that I had a dream that we were to be wedded the other night. I'm not saying that we should get married any time soon, but it was just such a sweet dream that I cried when I woke the next morning. Surprisingly Anna hasn't mocked me for it! She genuinely thought it very sweet, and has already began to make her own preparations for our wedding, and would like to know what is your favorite cake flavor.

With all my love as well,

Your Elsa

* * *

Dear Elsa,

My favorite flavor is quite ironically vanilla. I want chocolate frosting on it though, of course. I'd love to marry you Elsa. I would marry you over these letters if it was legally binding enough, but it's not enough. I need you in my arms again. I need your lips on mine again. Don't ever think that anything you dream would make me feel any less in love with you. I don't have a crush on you, I am completely and irrevocably and passionately in love with you.

Tell Anna I want a summer wedding too.

With all my love,

Your Peter

* * *

Dear Peter,

I was honestly not expecting that strong of a response from you! I literally began to cry with happiness. But now you've made a monster out of Anna. I think I liked her better when she was always making fun of me. She has an artist making designs of a chapel for us, with a very robust summer theme that really does take away my breath. It's beautiful. She doesn't mock me anymore and is actually excited for our wedding. I won't announce that we're engaged though, and Anna likes to constantly argue with me on that issue, but I don't believe we're truly engaged. We need to get to know each other better than we do now.

P.S. I love vanilla cake too.

With all my heart,

Your Elsa

* * *

Dear Elsa,

I agree one hundred percent. We shouldn't rush into this. I will wait for you forever.

I'm almost to Stockholm, I'll be there by the time you read this. I'll never be able to fully describe the beauty of this place, I wish you could have come with me. The sun paints everything orange and lights everything on fire in the most soft and delicate way. I don't know if you really like fire, do you? See, we don't know enough about each other. I really don't know what you like or dislike...

I know I've already told you time and time again, but I just want to tell you once more that I love you. I love you more than these stunning sunrises and sunsets. I love you more than the stars that twinkle bright like your eyes. I love you more than everything, I always have, and I always will.

With all my love,

Your Peter

* * *

Dear Peter,

I am so glad that everything is going well. Now I always think of you when the sun strikes my eyes in the mornings. I want to tell you that your bakery is still doing well enough. Your men have stayed with Christopher so far for the past two weeks, so don't worry. I will do anything to support it anyways. I don't care what you say, I will pay any amount to keep it open, and I've already told that to them. They all want to tell you that they miss you terribly. I think Phillip misses you the most though. He tries to act cool and disinterested, but you and I both know what happens when people do that. It means they care much more than they want to let on.

I love you more than you could ever understand. I love you more than even I can understand. I never thought I'd be able to love someone so much. I can still feel your lips on mine whenever I begin to miss you terribly, which is becoming more and more frequent.

I enjoy fires actually. Their warmth eased my fears whenever I was afraid of my powers when I was younger.

Anna misses you so much Peter. I hope that when you finally return you will have the strength to appease her desperate longing of your chocolate. She keeps going on and on about how much she's just dying to taste it again, and so I have a feeling you're going to be kept prisoner in our kitchens for a few days.

Speaking of which! This is Anna writing now. I don't want to write my own letter. That's just more time and paper and just not worth it. I don't mean you're not worth it! Please don't think I hate you because I won't write you a letter by myself... You probably do anyway. I'm sorry. But Elsa is right. When you get back you aren't leaving this castle until I've gained at least thirty pounds. Christopher is plain awful and I miss you so much! I wish you didn't have to be away for so long. I also have exciting news! Kristoff and I are getting married in a month! He's the big, blonde, ice harvester guy if you don't remember who he is. And fine, you two can wait until you get back to get engaged I guess.

Now it's Elsa again. I pray that you remain safe for the rest of your journey, and I will continue to count the days until I receive your next letter.

With all my love as well,

Your Elsa

* * *

Dear Peter,

I've been waiting for you, but you haven't sent anything. A month has gone by without a letter from you... I hope you're alright. Anna and Kristoff are now married, and she still misses you terribly. She's also told me that she planned for us to be together that night on her birthday. I couldn't believe it! How sneaky! She made me feel so bad for Kristoff, but she planned the whole thing! Him betting me to that drinking game and everything! I guess I shouldn't really be surprised. That's Anna for you.

I still love you very much and I can't wait to hear from you again.

With all my might and with all my heart,

Your Elsa

* * *

Dear Peter,

I'm probably just being paranoid, but I'm becoming increasingly worried about you. Maybe my letter's just aren't getting to you, or you're too busy becoming the world's greatest chocolatier and there's no time to write. Or, maybe your letters are getting lost and they just aren't making it here.

I have very grave news, but I'm not sure if I should tell you it, but then again I also want to keep you updated on home so you won't be a stranger when you return. Anna became pregnant around the time of my third letter two months ago. But, today she miscarried, and I needed to get it out of my broken heart.

I'm still going to write to you, even if you are very busy. I hope they make you happy. I just wish you'd at least let me know you're getting them, then I could stop worrying about all these terrible possibilities that have happened to you. I'm sure you're fine, where ever you are. You're probably living comfortably in another kingdom by now, waiting to move on to the next as your program described. I'd love to know where you go, maybe I could send word to the king and queen of your excellent talent before you head off to the next palace.

My heart is yours my love,

Your Elsa

* * *

Dear Peter,

Hello Peter, it's Anna. I decided to take a crack at writing to you, in hopes that you might receive my letter. Elsa has been writing you everyday, and she's losing sleep over you not responding. She keeps assuming the worst, but I'm always trying to convince her otherwise, but now I'm beginning to doubt myself. Please, I know I don't know you that well, but you do mean a lot to me. You make my sister very happy Peter, and I hope that you are safe where ever you are.

Please write back soon. I miss you,

Anna


	4. A forgotten legend

**Here's the first glimpse at what happened to Peter. You're welcome.**

* * *

Peter forced himself to swallow the slippery noodles. The food was hot and delicious, but it was too much for his shriveled stomach, but Elsa made him finish his plate every night. The eighth night since he awoke Elsa finally was around to hear him vomiting and her heart shattered because she knew it was her fault.

"Why didn't you tell me? I wouldn't have pushed you to eat all of your food if I knew sweetheart. I'm so sorry."

"I just wanted to make you happy." He tried to smile a little to ease her pain, but he felt more coming up and concentrated on keeping it down as she took her damp rag and wiped away the remnants of regurgitated pasta from his pale lips.

"Peter, don't worry about my happiness. I am already happy. You're home, with me."

He opened his mouth to say something, but his stomach churned from the fumes coming from the bucket he was using while she spoke and up came more from his rejected dinner.

Elsa rubbed his back, always closing her eyes when he upchucked to avoid doing it herself. The stench was intensifying, and she felt her stomach begin to swirl.

After Peter was finished he set down his bucket on the floor and then got underneath his covers again. "I think I'm done for now." He said tiredly, and again Elsa wiped his mouth clean. "Thank you for staying with me." She was rinsing her rag clean, but when he spoke she let it float in her water bucket.

"Of course Peter. You don't need to thank me." She said with a sad smile and ran her slender fingers through his slick hair. "Would you like to bathe tonight? I can get a male guard to assist you-"

"No!" Peter half shouted and Elsa jumped a little and retracted her hand from his sweaty hair. "I-I mean... I can bathe myself. I'll be fine."

"I'll go run some water for you then. Do you want it warm or cold since you're starting to burn up?" She said as unphased as she could from the mild shock of him shouting. Her mind racking itself for an explanation, but not finding one as she felt his clammy forehead.

"More cool than warm would be nice, if it's not too much trouble." He spoke quickly at the last part. He hated being waited on. He knew he needed it, but he didn't like depending on others.

"No trouble at all." She smiled warmly and lovingly caressed his cheek then bent forward to kiss his warm forehead. "It's good to see your color coming back. You're at least looking much more healthy." She commented as she rose from the side of the bed she was sitting at.

"I do feel much better actually, thanks to you. The food just is a little too rich I think."

"I'll have them simplify it for you then." She reached down for both of the buckets.

"I think I just need a little less is all."

"Alright, I'll have them lessen your portions. You tell me when you can't eat anymore from now on okay?"

"Okay." And with that Elsa smiled then left the room. Peter closed his eyes and tried to focus on her smile and not his swirling stomach.

* * *

Elsa dumped out the vomit and the water and left them on the floor outside the water closet to be picked up and scrubbed later. She ran the bath on full heat since it was easier to make it cooler than it was to make the cold water warmer. When she thought it was the temperature Peter wanted she left and went to go get him, and half way there she ran into Kristoff holding little Robert.

"Is everything alright?" She asked as they came closer towards each other.

"I was about to ask you the same thing. Urgent news came in of something and Anna volunteered to handle it for now. I don't know what it is, they didn't want to tell me. Anna just wanted you to know she's in the meeting room if you need her." Robert starred at Elsa like he was deep thought, in Kristoff's arms.

"I was just going to help Peter to his bath. I might swing by afterwards to see what's the matter. I wonder why they wouldn't tell you." Elsa went and wormed her finger into Robert's tiny hand.

"I can help him if you want to go find her now."

"Peter almost had a heart attack when I suggested a man help him. I'll do it myself."

"Hmm... How is he tonight?"

"Well, I finally learned that he's been throwing up everyday after he eats. I accidentally walked in when the doctor came in to change his dressings on his wounds. Kristoff, he's a skeleton. And my god... The scars on his back. They're all I can think of when I'm with him." Her voice began to tremble as she played with the baby's hand to cheer herself up.

Kristoff just looked at her pained face and wanted so much to hold her, if only he wasn't on mommy duty. "Has he told you anything?"

"He doesn't know I saw his scars. The door was open a little that day. I saw them, then I ran away and then I puked. I cried for a good hour before Anna found me scrunched up in a ball. I almost made it back to my office before I broke down."

"Wow, it looks like nobody's telling me anything." He said a little hurt, and Elsa looked up at him.

"I'm sorry Kristoff. You know I'm not meaning to keep anything from you. I figured Anna told you. She probably just doesn't want you to worry. You've got this little guy to worry about enough." She smiled at him and he mirrored it back looking down at his son. "I better go back, before Peter thinks I've forgotten him."

"Yeah okay. Go on ahead." He looked at her one more time, and she was placing a tender kiss on her nephew's hairy head.

"Say bye bye, say bye bye!" Kristoff took one of Robert's hand to wave at Elsa as she walked past them, and she looked back at the baby being puppeteered to wave at her and she waved back at him before continuing on down the hallway.

* * *

"Peter?" She knocked then opened the door and saw him sitting on the edge of the bed again. "Are you feeling okay?" She asked as she walked in.

He turned his head back and said, "Yeah, I'm just taking my time getting up. I almost fell face first the first try."

"Oh, well let me help you!" She said excitedly and hurried over to him.

"I want to see if I can do it on my own." He said resolutely and she stopped in her tracks beside him. He once again began to lift himself off the bed, but very slowly this time. He almost became unbalanced and it took all Elsa's strength not to throw out her arms to try and catch him.

Finally he was on his feet, his arms out though to keep him that way. He was finally able to smile at his accomplishment.

"I'm sorry I took so long getting back. Kristoff went off to find and tell me there's been urgent news, but Anna went in for me to handle it."

Peter fell back on the bed, almost fainting again. He knew what the news was.

"Peter!" She shrieked, and reached over for him, but he threw up a hand signaling he was okay and then rose up onto his elbows.

"I'm fine." His voice was empty. It sounded weightless. He wasn't fine and nothing he could say would fool Elsa otherwise and he knew that. Tears lined up at his eyes. The past eight days he tried to be at peace. He lied to himself that all that happened to him was over, that they wouldn't come looking for him. He was just starting to believe it.

"No you're not. Listen, you still don't have to tell me what happened, but son't lie to me." Elsa stood in front of him with her hands balled on her hips, her eyes were flashing with mild anger.

Peter looked up at her with a blank expression, all his pain resurfacing, and her glare mellowed out. She extended a hand for him, and after staring at it for a few moments he surrendered and took it and let her pull him up. When he stood she put his arm around her shoulders and began to lead them out of the room.

"I have no choice but to tell you the truth now." He said breathlessly. Elsa just looked over at him feeling confused, but also hopeful. "I'll wait until we get there to tell you. I can't it hide anymore."

Elsa didn't say anything, but Peter know she understood, and so on they walked, or rather Elsa dragged. He was trying his best to walk, but his fear was beginning to cripple him and caused his legs to slowly go numb.

Eventually they reached the water closet and Elsa opened the door and dragged him in. She took him over to a stool in the corner that her parents used to sit on as they bathed Anna and her when they were little, an eternity ago.

"Please don't think any of this is your fault." He started, but Elsa quickly interrupted.

"Why don't we get you in the tub first, then you can tell me. I don't want the water to get too cold for you. Would you feel more comfortable with your clothes on?"

"No, I trust you. I just need help to get them off though." He said and she immediately went to help him.

"I promise I won't do anything." She said as she began to lift his tunic up.

"That's why I said I trust you." She rolled it up and pulled it off over his head then looked at him and for the first time in a week he was fully smiling. She pulled the tunic off from his arms and then folded it neatly and set it at the foot of the tub. He looked down at his shriveled torso, covered in yellowed bandages from all the serous fluid that still oozed from the infected wounds underneath.

"Do you have any gloves in here?" He asked looking at her hands. "The doctor always wears some to protect himself. My wounds aren't healing well, and you shouldn't touch them with your bare hands."

"I probably should also have brought a salve for them too shouldn't I have?" She said sadly, as if she failed him.

"It's okay Elsa. He keeps a jar in the dresser next to the bed, for in case something happens and my bandages need to be changed when he's not there."

"Will you be okay by yourself?"

"I'll manage." Again, he forced his lips to curl again and he produced another small smile that lifted Elsa's heart.

"I'll be right back then." She left the little closet and went into a dead sprint for his room. She prayed that she wouldn't run into anyone this time and her prayer was granted. She threw his door open and raced to the dresser and pulled open the first drawer and found two jars inside and grabbed them both. She set them on top of the dresser and pulled open the other drawers hoping to find a pair of gloves that maybe the doctor left. In the second drawer held five pairs of thin, white cotton gloves and seven rolls of gauze. She grabbed two pairs for just in case, three rolls of gauze, and the two jars and then made a mad dash back to the water closet.

"That was fast." Peter said as Elsa breathlessly pushed herself through the door with her arms full.

"I didn't want to risk running into anybody." She set the jars and gauze in the sink and put on a pair of gloves and returned to her patient. "So, do I just peel them off?" She asked innocently, having never been put in this situation before.

"Yeah, and try and do it quickly. They dry onto the cuts that leak and it hurts like hell when you take it off."

"Great."

"Don't worry. Just do it, don't think about it. They're all looking better the doctor said. I just need to keep resting and being nourished and I'll be right as rain again." He grabbed for her hand to place it where the bandage ended so she wouldn't have to feel for it.

She began pulling the bandage away from his body and started to walk around him as she unwound it, then she hit a snag after unwinding three times around him, the bottom layer completely stuck onto his back.

"Prepare yourself now. I heard it's not pretty uncovered." He said gravely. "Just pull it off hard and quick. It'll hurt me regardless."

"Oh Peter-"

"Just do it!"

She gasped from his shout and accidentally yanked on the bandage and it tore away from the infected slash beneath and he hissed in pain. "Don't stop!" She had to close her eyes, but she quickly pulled and stepped around him one last time and when she didn't feel resistance anymore she opened her eyes again and she was back in front of him.

His face was contorted in a grimace as he kept hissing from the excruciating, burning sting of the air against the reopened scars. Elsa looked down at the soiled gauze and gagged at them smell that wafted up as she balled it up and threw it into a waste pale. Her gloves didn't get anything on them so she decided it was safe to keep them on.

"Do I need to put the salve on now?"

"No. Just get me inside the water." He hissed through his teeth.

The adrenaline that began to spill into his blood was enough to wake his legs up again and he tried to stand up, and Elsa came over and put her hands under his arms to make sure he didn't fall over, but then she noticed one last piece of clothing.

"Do you want to take your pants off first?" She asked without the slightest hint of a blush in her voice, and he opened his squinted eyes slightly to look at her.

"If you don't mind." He said sharply, no tone, all breath.

"Just keep your hands on my shoulders okay?"

"Sure." He hissed out again.

She took a deep breath. Now that blush was creeping under her fair skin. She grabbed at the hem of his pants and quickly pulled them down exposing him completely. Somehow she found it easy not to stare. That's because something was missing, but her lack of knowledge of male anatomy didn't prepare her for what he should look like.

"Lift your right foot." She commanded and he did and she pulled that pant leg out from underneath. "Now the other one." He lifted his other foot and she grabbed the pants and rose up careful not to look down there. She folded the pants as well looking off to the side, avoiding his eyes at all cost. He had dropped his hands already.

When she finished folding his pants she stuffed them under arm and had him put his arm around her shoulder again and she walked him over to the tub.

She bent over so to not just drop his pants down on top of his tunic, and then she stood behind Peter as he gradually stepped into the water. She continued to hold onto him as he lowered himself down and he moaned in utter relief as the water soothed his smarting wounds as he submerged himself. When he got comfortable enough he closed his eyes and relaxed against the cool metal wall of the tub and Elsa went to drag the wooden stool over so she could be near him.

"So... Why would I think what happened to you was my fault?" She asked cautiously, taking off and throwing away her gloves. He opened his eyes again, but he didn't dare look at her. He stared right ahead of him, for a thousand meters.

"I was mugged... and taken prisoner... A few days after I sent my last letter."

Elsa heart stopped. It just plain stopped beating. It felt like it had fallen from it's place and rested with her bowels.

"I was sold into slavery because my captors thought they had captured a prince or something. They were constantly gloating about how they defeated a king's security. Your men fought to the death to keep me safe. It didn't matter how many times I told them... They just kept throwing the fact that I was riding in a royal wagon, as they called it. Why else would a man ride in a palanquin if he was not a prince, one of the men said before he struck me in the head. The next time I woke I was in a god awful smelling ship, packed tight with all these other people. You couldn't see a thing and you could hardly breathe and with the stench you really didn't want to."

Peter was so focused on telling his story he didn't notice Elsa crying, she smacked her hands across her mouth to contain her sobs. How could she not blame herself? She just had to give him the best! She just had to make him vulnerable! She imagined him in the crowded, dank ship, and she could she a messenger scouring all over Sweden for her Peter to give him her countless letters, but never finding him.

The messenger had kept them, the letters. Whenever he tired of looking for the boy, he was found and handed yet another envelope with the queens' handwriting on the outside addressing it for Peter. He thought it so cruel a thing for the words transcribed to never know the satisfaction of being read and being cherished and so he kept them and he read them everyday. He never stopped looking for her Peter. He asked in castles first, then he went all around the surrounding town and villages, if they had seen a young man of twenty-three, around six feet tall, curly dark brown hair, dark brown eyes, a muscular build and a deep tan, common among peasants. He always received the same answer where ever he went. "No."

After months of searching the messenger sent Elsa a letter himself. It simply said he could not find her Peter anywhere, but there were rumors that he was somewhere in Finland. Elsa never replied. She fell into a deep depression. She hardly ate, or drank, and she just wanted to sleep. Anna constantly scolded her all the time and force fed her on multiple occasions. She made sure Elsa snapped out her mood quickly.

"I accidentally let it slip where I was really from to my third group of companions," Peter continued on, Elsa missed a lot of details of him telling of his unlikely friendship with an African. "But I never told them my real name or who I was. I lied and said my name was Erick and I was an apprentice of a carpenter, but when they learned I was from Arendelle who I was didn't matter anymore to them. What I knew did."

Elsa had calmed down a little by now but she still cried, and she wanted madly to crawl into the tub and hold him, just to feel his body there, make sure this wasn't a dream, or rather a nightmare. When he said that his new owners were only interested in him when they knew he came from Arendelle her tears stopped in their tracks and her pupils constricted with premonition. Why did they care so much where he came from?

"Slavery has been outlawed for decades... Slave trade has been outlawed even longer... How was it your abductors were never caught?" She asked with a trembling voice.

"People don't see what they don't want to see. I was very lucky though. Abejide and I became very close and that's what ended up saving him from being sent away to work in mines. We couldn't be separated, so we were both sent to the ruthless king of Adalinda."

"What?" She was sorely confused. It wasn't so much from not listening earlier but just from the sheer volume of information Peter was trying to condense into his mini epic.

"Abejide is the African I befriended. He and I were sent to the small, extremely secluded kingdom of Adalinda. It's deep deep in the mountains of Zugspitze in Germany. More importantly, it's a real place. I don't know what happened to make it a legend, but it's not just a made up place in some book for little children. It's a real and horrifying place."


	5. A matter of trust

"It was my third time being traded after a year and two months. When news that a slave from Arendelle reached my new master he immediately had me sent to him." Peter went on to say

* * *

"Is it true that you are from Arendelle?" A tall, spiry man asked from his make shift throne in his dingy tent, the fire in front of him painting his face horridly with dark shadows and highlighting his ghastly, hollow cheeks and large roman nose.

"Y-yes."

He grinned and his rotted teeth glistened in the fire light and he tapped his greasy fingers together delicately in scheming.

"You are going to make me very rich young man." The man rose from his chair and glared down at the slave in front of him. "If you play your part you will be very successful." He stroked at his slick, frizzled beard as he slowly paced around his newest slave. "What is your name?."

"Erick, master."

"What is your real name?" He said irritated. "I know you are not of Norse decent, your skin is too dark."

"My name is Erick, master. It is the name my father gave me. I am not known by any other name." Peter's eyes flashed bright in defiance, and his master relented, noting the man's courage as he slid a finger underneath the young man's chin, lifting his face up so Peter couldn't scowl at him from under his brow.

"Not anymore. I now name you Jarle. It has much more bite to it. You are the son of a god now. I admire your will. It seems to be very much intact, no matter how many times you've been swatted." Peter felt his bare back burn, the blood still fresh and dripping from his deep lacerations. "That's good. Where you're going you will need a strong name and a strong will."

"Yes, master." Peter said looking to side past the man's grisly face, not wanting to look at him anymore. His master took back his hand and Peter let his head drop back down and watched him walk away from him, his hands clasped together behind his back.

"I have heard that you can speak many languages as well! Can you speak German?"

"Ja, ich kann Deutsch sprechen."

"Excellent! Excellent my boy!" He exclaimed turning and the fire light painted him horrifying again.

"I won't go anywhere without Abejide. If you want me to leave he is to come with me." Peter demanded quickly, and out of anger his master stormed over to him slapped his face with the back of his heavily jeweled hand. Peter stumbled back, but he made sure to not make a sound. He didn't even lift a hand to his bleeding cheek, he was going to show his strength; he was going to win.

"You do not rub your face? I hear you also do not cry out when punished. Are you impervious to pain my dear boy?"

"No, master."

"Why is this baboon so important to you?"

"He is my friend."

"He is a pathetic excuse for life! The only purpose his serves is to serve! He is not capable of friendship. He is not worthy of your kindness."

"I won't leave him behind. I will slit my throat before I ever set foot in another ship if you separate us."

"My, my. Is my young Jarle in love with a monkey?" He sneered, waiting for his slave to object, but Peter only glared at him, saying nothing, doing nothing. His master had no choice. He wanted money, and he wanted power. He had no choice.

He mockingly bowed to his slave. "Your wish is my command." He lifted his face with a gnarly grin, his plans projecting from his shiny gray eyes. "You may leave me. I will send for your lover and you two shall leave for Adalinda at dawn."

The master of no name didn't tell his two slaves anything about where they were going except the name. When Peter, Abejide, and the mountain man tasked to them arrived a week later, it took them three days to climb up the mountain. It's the tallest one in all of Germany. They rarely rested to get there faster. Abejide almost died from the extreme climate. He was used to dry deserts, and he was being thrown into a high altitude with fierce icy winds and snow storms. They finally arrived at the massive gates made of iron to an ancient, monstrous palace built onto the side of the mountain that just peaked over the top of the colossal gates that opened to them as they trudged forward, weakly from sheer exhaustion.

When the three men were brought inside the palace the king had the men that retrieved them to kill the mountain man at once so he could not return. He had a guard decapitate him in front of Peter and Abejide right as they were brought in. They starred at his displaced head in horror and Abejide vomited despite himself.

"Here are the real men of the hour." A strong, honey sweet voice rang out in the expansive foyer, and down a man in furs descended from atop the staircase from high above.

"My Arendellian and his baboon. Welcome to your new home. I am now your Lord and master, your one and true King, Viktor of Adalinda."

Peter looked over at the terrified and terribly confused Abejide beside him. Peter had taught him Norse while Abejide taught Peter Swahili so they could communicate together. Abejide was abducted from the Congo as a child and knew fragments of many languages.

"Anasema, Arendellian My na nyani wake. Karibu nyumba yako mpya. Sasa niko Mola wako na bwana, mmoja wenu na kweli King, Viktor ya Adalinda." Peter translated for him.

"Did that bastard send me a man who can't understand me? What use is he to me!" The king shouted, and he waved at his hand to his men signaling to kill the useless nuisance in his sight.

"Please! No, he is a strong worker. He can lift things three times his weight. I've taught him Norse, and on our way here I've taught him a little German. Just give him time and he'll be able to understand you completely, I swear." Peter pleaded, he outright shamelessly fell to his face, bowing to his new homicidal king.

"He does not look strong." He said and stopped his men from advancing towards the two.

"He is tired your majesty."

"You say that as if it is an excuse. There are no excuses here. There is no weakness here."

"Please." Peter begged and Abejide continued standing, gawking at the swords pointed towards him.

"Have them castrated and then send them to my throne room immediately afterwards. It's time for them to learn their new place." He said mercilessly to his men and they obeyed, sheathing their swords and ruthlessly dragged Peter and Abejide by the collars of their tunics off away to the slaves quarters. The king beamed brightly, watching his men take them away, relishing in the fear that excreted from his slaves pores. He breathed it in as if it could sustain him like water.

Peter didn't go into detail of his castration. It did't go into a lot of detail of anything at all actually. He told Elsa only what she needed to know.

* * *

"He's vicious, and that's an extreme understatement. There is a special place in hell for people like him." Peter explained to an extremely upset Elsa.

"How do you know it's him that's here then?"

"I can just feel it in my bones. I thought Abejide killed him though... When we arrived at the docks..."

* * *

"So, Jarle, tell me about Arendelle. Tell me of this legendary Ice Queen. Is she real?"

Peter was trembling from the agonizing pain of his sutured genitals, his testicles surgically removed, to degrade him and make it known that the King was above all. Every single male in the gargantuan castle was castrated beside the King because they were all unworthy in front of his godliness.

Viktor had proclaimed himself a god after the disease that ravaged his parents did not take his life, and so he thought himself invincible. His name meant conqueror. He could not be killed. He was dragon born.

"Yes, she is real." He forced out as loudly as he could.

"Well, go on!" The mad king waved his hands in an effort to encourage the terrified man before him.

"She can control ice and snow, she wills it into existence. She caused an eternal winter after her sister set her off, and ran into seclusion on the North mountain where she built herself a palace of ice, too beautiful to describe, too beautiful to believe, even with your own eyes."

"Have you seen it?" The King pushed himself to the edge of his throne, already enthralled like a child hearing a bedtime story, his piercing sapphire eyes were wide with fascination.

"Yes. I was tasked to remake it out of wood as a gift to the queen." Peter half lied. When first asked of his talents he told everyone he was the son of a carpenter. He thought it made him sound much more manly and therefore made his life seem more worth keeping to his captors.

"Truly marvelous." He sighed contentedly and he relaxed back into his plush throne. "What does she look like?"

"Beyond beautiful. She's tall and slender with snow blonde hair, and the bluest eyes you've ever seen, even more so than your's your holiness."

A true elemental had been reborn.

"How fast you learn you're place." He said with a warm albeit sharp smile. You will tell me everything there is to know about her." He demanded eagerly. Peter's heart dropped down to his feet. The tone in the king's voice conveyed a plan, a dastardly plan that Peter couldn't understand completely. Peter stayed silent, he didn't want to talk anymore. He could talk about Elsa for days, but he didn't want to say another syllable under the king's dark beam.

"SPEAK!" Viktor roared becoming impatient of Peter's disobedience. Viktor signaled for a man to come forward, and the man knew his task tacitly and raised his whip and flogged Peter mercilessly until Peter eventually fell unconscious.

He didn't tell Elsa that. He never told her of when he was whipped, knowing it would only upset her greatly.

* * *

"He's here to take your hand in marriage Elsa. He wants you to rule beside him."

"In his kingdom? That everyone thinks is a myth?" She asked still very confused.

"It's not a myth. He was born with a silver tongue. He can make you do anything he wants. He's insane. He was always raving about elementals and how they killed his family centuries ago, and now was his chance to redeem his family's name. He never explained himself, but he was always saying that."

"If he is here then Anna isn't safe. I have to go warn her!" Elsa jumped up from the stool, her face so pale it was almost translucent. "How will I keep you safe though too?" She said looking down at him.

"There must be some place that I can hide here. Somewhere rarely traveled?"

Elsa knew immediately the perfect place and she almost slapped herself for thinking of it, but her mouth worked faster than her mind. "My old room. No one goes down that part of the castle anymore. You can stay there."

"Alright."

"Wait! If Kristoff told Anna that I was busy helping you then she probably told him that he'll know you're here, that you escaped, you're alive..."

"If she told him, she told him that you were helping a Peter. My name is Jarle to him."

"What if he connects the dots Peter! How many people come to the doors of a castle terribly wounded and sick from being enslaved!" She was pacing the small room in terror and anxiety. "Oh Peter, I have to warn her now!"

"At least send for someone to help me out of here first." Peter shouted as Elsa bolted from the room, stranding him in the tub. She barely heard him as she sprinted down the hallways. She had never moved so fast in her life.

She threw out each leg, slamming her foot down and repeating with the other. Her lungs burst in flames, and her sides flared up with stitches. Fear shoved her frame forward, making her pain go unnoticed. She pumped and pumped her body to go faster until she finally reached the meeting room where she tripped and fell on her face when she tried to stop abruptly. She laid on the floor, heaving giant gulps of air back into her, and the door opened a little, and a guard looked out for the source of the sound, and Elsa heard Anna laughing from inside.

The guard looked down at the queen panting wildly at his feet, and before he could swing the door open Elsa looked up at him with this pleading look in her eyes and held a shaking finger to her lips. He nodded and quietly squeezed through the tiny opening of the door so not to draw attention to him leaving, and he shut the door behind him.

"My lady? What is the matter?" He whispered crouching down beside her to help her up as she continued to catch her breath and she raised herself onto her hands.

"Anna- She's- In trouble- We're- We're all in-danger." She spat at breathlessly.

"From what?" He asked, whispering again.

"Did a man come? With blue eyes?"

"Yes, my lady. It says he is a king here to meet your royal highness. Anna has kept him occupied so you could stay with Peter."

"Does he- know that Peter is here?"

"Not exactly. Anna told him you were busy helping an old friend at the moment."

"Good." She took one last huge breath and the fire in her lungs was extinguished. She could breathe somewhat normally now. "He can't know Peter is here. No one can say a word that he is here, do you understand me?" She commanded distressingly, and the guard felt cold inside from the bite in her voice.

"Yes, your majesty." He began to lift her up, and she continued one in a hushed, but harsh tone, as she fixed her hair and straightened her dress to look presentable.

"He needs help to get out of his bath. He's in the east corridor water closet. He'll tell you how to dress his wounds, then when you're done take him to my old room. He is to stay there while this king is visiting."

"Yes, your majesty." He bowed his head and opened the door to the meeting room for her to enter. He announced her to the room and then with one last look at her he left to fulfill his task.

"Ah! There she is! The lovely, mysterious, breathtaking, queen Elsa of Arendelle." A man with a thick German accent declared. He was dressed in fine leather with a billowing cape of thick fur, stepping towards her. His brilliant cobalt eyes piercing her heart. His yellow hair was slicked back strictly in place. This was not the same man she imagined in her head from Peter's tale. He was round, and fuzzy in her mind. Here, in reality, he was sharp and clear, bold and contrasting. His jaw was stern and his shoulders were broad, as if her could carry the world and all it's troubles on them. He was terrifyingly real, and he was coming closer.

He reached for her hands, taking them in his own, bowing and pressing his blood red lips to her knuckles, lingering there for as long as was acceptable to try and feel the ice beneath her skin. Then he lifted his face to gaze into her eyes, to see if she was taken by him yet. She pulled curtains over them, making them cloudy, hiding the fear she felt strangling her heart.

"I am King Viktor of Adalinda. It is an honor to finally meet you." He said proudly, rising up again.

She politely took back her hands and clasped them together and placed them in front of her. "It's a pleasure to meet you as well. And here I thought Adalinda was an old fairy tale." She lied through he smiling teeth, but he was wrapped up in his own vanity to notice.

"I can assure you, my kingdom is quite real. Few, but proud, are we who call it home."

"He was just telling me about all the dragons!" Anna remarked sarcastically, coming over to them, enlightening her sister of their earlier conversation before she came in.

"Oh yes! Our mighty dragons that light the skies with stars at night." He went on in a singsong like voice. "When I was little my parents were always warning me not to tread to far from the gates or one would gobble me up as a snack one day."

"How quaint." Elsa responded and she eyed Anna down desperately. "If you would please excuse my sister and I for just one moment. I need to speak to her about our present guest outside."

"Please! Go. I hope your friend is well! He must be very important to you." He said, his tone one of true concern, but Elsa knew not to believe it.

"Indeed." She replied and she grabbed Anna's wrist and pulled her out of the room and one of the guards at the door closed it behind them.

"What's wrong? What are you squeezing me to tight?" Anna exclaimed, and Elsa clamped her other hand over her sister's mouth.

"Quiet!" She hissed. "Just listen and don't say a single word until I am finished, got it?" Anna nodded her head, her blue eyes wide with fear. And Elsa lowered away her hand and let go of her sister's wrist.

"Viktor is not to know about Peter being here. The guest here is no one of importance for him. Peter is to hide in my old room until this man leaves."

"Why?" She asked afraid.

"I will tell you later. Right now you don't need to know. Do not mention Peter in the slightest or I swear to god Anna, I'll freeze you again. Do you understand." Elsa didn't ask, she required, and Anna quickly nodded her head again a little too hard, and tears lined up at her eyelids.

"You wouldn't really freeze me again." She said, and the heartbreaking tone made Elsa hug her when she realized what she had actually said to her little sister.

"No." She sighed sadly "But please understand Anna." She begged into her sister's ear.

"Okay. I haven't told him anything, and I won't tell him anything. Do you want me to leave?"

Elsa lifted away, but kept her arms around Anna and looked her square in the face and saw how scared her sister was as she looked at her.

"No, I trust you." Then she placed a tender kiss on Anna's forehead that elicited a smile from them both.

They separated to re-enter the room, but Anna slipped her hand into Elsa's as she twisted the doorknob. Elsa's hand was ice hard.

"So, tell me Viktor, how long do you plan to stay in Arendelle?" Elsa asked stepping back into the room, Anna close to her, holding her hand, and her arm with her other hand.

"As long as you will let me your majesty. I don't won't to impose you in anyway." He said bashfully, copying her earlier clasping of her hands, and placed his in front of him with an innocent expression set on his harsh face, softening it considerably.

"Then why don't you stay in the west corridor for the night, and we'll meet again over breakfast?" Elsa suggested politely, growing weary of his beaming eyes. He looked to her like a relic, something once believed to have been lost to time forever.

"That sounds splendid. I am so tired from traveling all the way here. It's such a hard journey from Germany."

* * *

** Soon I will write a chapter that tells you the tale of The Dragon Seasons, and a whole lot of this will finally make sense. Just hold on and I will share my powers of ice and snow with thee. **


	6. Once upon a dream

Elsa went to her old room first, to check on Peter. She only remembered that he very strongly objected to a man helping him after she got away from Viktor, after she led him, a few of his servants, and a few of her servants, carrying his belongings, to an empty room in the West corridor, and after his many, many... many thanks, he finally resigned for the night.

"Peter? Are you in there?"

"Yes."

She was too happy to hear him to hear the anger in his voice. When she opened the door it became the first time she stepped foot in there in almost four years. The ice was finally gone, but the room was still neatly organized. Her wardrobe and dressers were gone, she left her bed, opting for a fresh one when she got her new room. One that wasn't stained with fear.

"I thought I told you I didn't want a man to help me." He said coldly, sitting up in the old bed, the comforter covering his lap.

"I'm so sorry Peter. I was out of mind. I didn't know what I was thinking, and he's here. Peter, it's him." She strung her words together as coherently as she could. The anger drained away from Peter's face, horror replacing it.

"Oh God." He said breathlessly.

"It's going to be okay Peter. I promise." She said coming over to him. She climbed onto the bed and sat beside Peter, wrapping him in her warm embrace once again. "I've alerted all the staff and made them swear that they won't let it be known that you're here."

"Will I really be safe here in your old room?"

"There is no reason for someone to come down here."

"What does that make me?" Peter whined.

"I'll set out a guard out here then, and if Viktor so much as raises an eyebrow I'll throw him out. He was being so polite earlier saying he didn't want to impose. He is much more terrifying in person."

"He reminds of that Hans fellow."

"Well we've learned that lesson, and no one is going to make the same mistakes twice. Anna was very smitten to him though. He was very charming... And he just kept staring at me. Like I was his long lost lover or something. I can still feel his eyes on my skin."

"Just don't believe a word he says Elsa. Don't you dare let him in your head. He'll never leave." He related morosely and he buried his face into the crook of her neck and breathed in her wintery smell, despite it being halfway into summer. Her heart was tired of breaking and so it still rested among her lower organs from before. His misery simply crushing her broken heart into smaller pieces.

"Would you be willing to tell me more? It's just so strange that you actually did come back in two years like you said, and I'd really like to understand why he's come two weeks after you when you arrived together."

_'GO! GO NOW!'_

He winced in agony at the remembrance. He felt so much better when he talked to her before though, so he decided to open up a little more. Maybe he would end up okay after all.

* * *

He was finally dreaming. Not a nightmare, but a lovely dream; a memory.

"Good morning Peter." Elsa strode in his room, or at least a room she let him stay in for the night so they could immediately start making plans when they woke; no distraction of his bakery and no waiting for him to come over, with an outfit for him in her her arms, borrowed from Kristoff's closet. Elsa was fully dressed and ready to tackle the day. Peter was still under the plushy comforter, fast asleep.

"Peter?" She placed the clothes on top of a desk set against the wall to the left of the bed and walked over to the big bump under the blankets and shaking him, eliciting a long groan. "Come on Peter it's time to get up. You get up everyday at three, why is seven so hard to manage?" She grabbed for the top of the blankets and pulled them down so she could see his face, his peaceful, handsome face, sleep heavily sprinkled on him. She smiled lovingly at him and in all her boldness brushed her lips against his cheek softly.

His eyes fluttered open at the sensation and he quickly went to cup her small chin with his hand and brought her lips to his. She never tried to back away, but she also didn't try and really further the kiss either and this made Peter a little upset, so he lifted himself up, keeping Elsa's now smiling mouth pressed onto his. The blanket fell away revealing his bare, chiseled chest and that's when Elsa knew she was in trouble.

He wrapped his arms around her middle and pulled them back down onto the bed. Elsa's face was on fire. Her heart had never beat so fast in her life. She tried to lift away even though her heart was rejoicing, her head was spinning too much though. He put his hand behind her head to hold her there, his other hand against the middle of her back, pressing her body her closer to him.

"This is highly improper!" She managed to say against his mouth, and he reluctantly stopped kissing her for a moment to reply.

"I'm not well acquainted with proper, darling." He said brushing away her bangs from her crimson face, sleep hanging on to every word.

"Well, at least you're honest." She said back and he grinned wide and she kissed him once more, eagerly, going so far as to invite his lower lip into her mouth, tasting his sweet skin, and he tilted her head back to deepen their kiss, making it feel searing, and then he played with the little tendrils of hair at the nape of her neck, making them stand on end.

"We really should start on your plans young man." She said against his mouth again.

"Why don't you make the plans and I'll continue to kiss you all day?"

"I can't make very good plans without my lips."

"Write." He darted his tongue past her soft lips and her spine tingled with a multitude of chills, and she pushed her tongue into his mouth without thinking, but then after a few seconds she recoiled away.

"Brush your teeth, and then I'll reconsider." He pouted, his brown eyes yearning to melt her icy blue ones, but she wouldn't budge, and so he finally relented and loosened his hold around her and she got up off the bed leaving him to feel cold without her warm body on his.

She quickly left the room only to fall back against the wall beside the door. Her knees were shaking violently the whole way out but she willed them to keep her up until she was out of sight and then she let them buckle and give way. She felt completely dizzy and delirious and she loved it. She relished in the ghostly sensation of his mouth still on her lips. When he heard him stir as he got out of bed she called out from where she sat, "When you're finished meet me in my study."

"Yeah, alright. When are we going to eat? I'm a growing boy! I needs my protein!" He hollered out tiredly.

"Now where did my scholar from last night go?"

"To bed three hours ago."

"Why'd you stay up so late?"

"I couldn't stop thinking about you." He said frankly, changing into the fresh shirt Elsa brought him.

* * *

His eyes flew open and tears coated them from the hard, sharp kick to his stomach. "Wake up sleeping beauty. I can see land on the horizon." Viktor said excitedly and then he ran over to Abejide and gave him a blow to the gut as well. "Wake up baboon! We're almost there!"

Peter forced himself up. He felt so tired and weak and hungry. Viktor made sure to keep him and Abejide malnourished so they couldn't build up their strength and over throw him. Peter knew it was better for him be standing and punished, it hurt a whole lot less because abusers only like to kick you when you're down. You're too much of a threat if you're standing up.

Viktor was halfway up the mast when Peter finally pushed his broken body up off the wooden floor of the top deck. He limped over to Abejide who was cradling his freshly broken ribs.

"Kupata juu au Viktor kick tena." (Get up or Viktor will kick you again.) He said extending his hand to help his friend up. Abejide slowly grabbed on and pulled himself up, almost pulling Peter down.

"Jarle! Come! Come! You must see this! It's wonderful!"

Peter first made sure Abejide could stay standing on his own then he went over to his mad as a hatter king. Yes, Viktor was vicious and cruel and outright tortured Peter, but Peter was his favorite eunuch of all. He made him do all his bidding, but if he thought it was particularly ghastly, even to him, then he had Abejide do it.

"Come! Come! Climb up with me!" He called out as Peter started to climb the mast as well. "It's magnificent!"

It was cloudy. Peter couldn't see anything but a tiny, blurry sliver of dark green in the distance. "Yeah, it is." Peter lied as enthusiastically as he could.

"What does he feel like Jarle? To come back home as a man of true power? With me, you can do anything." He shouted down below as Peter clung on to the mast, fighting to hold on against the tempest blowing through.

Viktor was not at all concerned about his eunuch returning home. He knew he had enough power over him that he wouldn't disobey now. Peter never disobeyed him. The only way Peter was ever punished was when Abejide got in trouble. Peter took his whippings for him. He couldn't bear to hear Abejide scream. Peter didn't scream, his head was full of hope, fractured, and broken, but hope it remained.

Two years. How funny. He was returning right on time.

"Is that kaffir up yet?" Viktor howled over the strengthening winds, but his hands never loosened his grasp. Peter simply thought it was just because he was so malnourished, that's why his master was so much stronger than him.

"Yes. He is waiting for us below your majesty." Peter answered, but Viktor had already jumped from the height of at least twenty-five feet onto the deck. Peter shimmied down from about ten feet.

The sail over to the horizon was full of Viktor screaming at his men who were doing their jobs perfectly in the first place, like they always did, but finally after an hour,they reached the docks, and his servants all began to carry his things down from the ship. Viktor was so enthralled with the dank, depressing area, full of poor beggars and fisherman to notice how some shadowy men were beginning to converge at his ship.

A gun shot resonated through the thick air. People took cover on the ground, behind barrels, many simply jumped into the icy water.A few just kept going with their business, completely used to this barbaric ritual that happened too often. Pirates.

Smoke bombs came rolling over and exploding to create massive walls of black smoke and the pirates all charged, swords drawn, rifles cocked, spears primed, headfirst into the king's men.

Viktor's servants first threw their master's luggage at the pirates before they could draw the rifles strapped to there backs and they took there knee to see better through the thick, dark smoke and aimed for the feet they saw scurrying past, and the pirates crashed to the wooden floor of the docks with heavy thuds, and they cried out in pain at their injured feet. Peter lost track of Abejide when Abejide let go off his hand as they ran away, seeing their chance to escape and not afraid to risk it whatsoever. Peter ran blindly through the man made fog, covering his ears from the incessant clinging of swords or whizzing bullets as they flew past him. The winds were strengthening and beginning to displace the smoke.

Three men went straight for Viktor, all of them firing at him relentlessly, and Viktor faltered from the two shots that actually hit him, but only in his left bicep and left calf. He drew his ceremonious sword and ran for them and skillfully felled each man, the closest with a thrust to his stomach, the second behind him with a slash that tore his head half way off, and another thrust to the man at his left. But, he never worried about the fourth, dark, figure running for him, knowing him to be an ally, and he looked forward away from the sea and saw Jarle coming towards him as well and he grinned at his loyal servant as his ally slashed the back of his neck open with a rusty blade from a fallen pirate.

"GO! GO NOW!" A spear pierced through Abejide's skull, replacing his eye. Peter watched in mixed horror and exhilaration. His master laid crumpled on the ground bleeding, but so did his only friend on top of his master. When he saw more pirates coming towards him he gathered the rest of his adrenaline induced strength and ran away from the gruesome sight. The pirates were never after him, but after the king, for any loot on him since they were sorely losing, and they were never ones to leave empty handed.

* * *

"I have no idea how he survived. I saw him fall, and I would have_ swore_ on _my_ life that _his_ was gone." His eyes were wide from reliving it all over again. The only reason they weren't dry, since he didn't blink the whole time, to keep the image out of his head, was because of the tears that refreshed them every now and then. They fell and hit Elsa's cold skin, but his voice never quivered. It forgot how to.

"I don't remember seeing a scar anywhere on his neck. I would think there would be something there, but then if he was cut at the neck, there is no way he could have survived, even with time to heal, it would have severed something wouldn't it have? Two weeks wouldn't be enough time to gain back walking if he could survive... Is it?" She asked more to herself than to Peter as she mulled over possibilities that could explain his living logically, but she couldn't find a logical one.


	7. Dragon Seasons

**A myth explaining the seasons:**

The world was fresh and new, and it had been settled by man and by beast. Cities are created and spread, ransacked and rebuilt, as men discover what they are greatest at; destruction. But there was a mighty beast that can best them at their only perceived talent. The dragon.

They terrorized the country sides at any whim they chose, resetting the human race multiple times from killing them to extinction. The gods were fighting in the heavens, concerned, but they didn't want to rid the dragons away, and then one god suggested they make it colder so the dragons will hide somewhere to keep warm. Another god suggested the make caves for them to live in while it's cold and that will teach them to live there in the caves, away from the humans.

It was decided, and thus came winter and summer. It was decided and thus came the towering mountains, perfect for the dragons to fly to and difficult for humans to reach, so neither could bother the other. But, then it became apparent that the humans did not do well in the winter as they did in the summer and so they shortened the period and thus came spring and fall to ease the humans into the cold. The dragons stayed in their mountains during the fall and winter and after centuries of this they began to stop coming down all together, enjoying the eternal cold of their towering mountains.

The gods rested and rejoiced in praise of their work to uphold the lives of their creations, as humanity thrived once again for thousands of years.

Then one day, the great trickster Loki moved the sun closer to the earth to irritate the dragons, and they flew away from there rocky homes as they heated up. The humans quite enjoyed the heat as it allowed more work to be done and they could prosper more quickly, that is until the dragons began to reside on the hillsides of man's country and slowly they fell back into the routine of terrorizing the humans and again the gods came together for a way to fix everything.

For hundreds of years on, man lived under the tyranny of the winged, fire spitting monsters. Many brave souls felt it their right to conquer them and the war for their lives raged on as they left their homes and families to try and tame the wild beasts. As they showed their courage and proved their valor the dragons soon became less hostile towards the tiny, hairy two-legged people, and some were so impressed by their strong wills to protect their families that they would submit and teach them their language and thus became the first dragon riders; men who spoke the dragon's tongue and became one with their new allies. If a man could tame a dragon he could conquer anything, he could be king.

In a hill dotted village in present day Russia, a man, the chief, went off to face the dragon that burnt his people's crops every year during the beginning of summer. He said goodbye to his wife who rubbed her swollen belly, carrying his first child, and he set off to confront the dragon.

By foot it took two days to cross over to the scorched hills that housed the dragon he sought for. By flight it took less than a few hours.

He tread upon the dragon's lair and the dragon appeared, growling at the unwelcome visitor, but listened anyway to the man's smooth voice as he tried to reason with it in his human language. The dragon understood much of what he said from living almost three centuries among the humans on it's hill. As the man came closer, no fear to be found in his head from the beast, soothing the dragon's anger, the dragon fell in love with the man from the kindness in his heart as he went on about how his people are dying from starvation since their crops were being ruined by the dragon.

The dragon begins to think about what to say, trying to bring the foreign language up front to it's tongue and told the man to stay for the night. If he did, the dragon wouldn't hurt his people anymore, so the man agreed and stayed for the night, not bothering to know the reason.

The man felt very tired and laid down to rest and as he did the dragon transformed herself into a human woman. She had eyes of brilliant sapphire and hair black as night. She went to wake the man from his slumber and he jumped back in shock of the beautiful and bare woman who woke him.

She said that if he would lay with her, she could promise the dragon wouldn't attack his people ever again. The man being one of high honor refused to the task, explaining how he had a wife and a child, but she convinced him that no one would ever find out unless he told them. She lied that she was bound to the dragon as it's wife. The man thought for a second considering the option and finally agreed to sleep with her, if it meant the safety of his people.

The next morning, after having slept with the beautiful woman the man left before the sun rose so she can't see him leave, and he left her there alone in the dawn.

The dragon-woman became pregnant with his child and when he came back after the birth of his daughter with his wife to thank the woman, she hid from him. She vowed to never let him know of his second child or of her true form and so he left without a welcome of any sort.

She birthed a son months later and he is born with hair as yellow as the sun and eyes bluer than the oceans. She named him Afanasy. Since he was born from the act of seduction and lust he did not have a pure heart like his father and he grew to became very cruel and ruthless and killed his mother for never letting him out of her sight so he could not cause trouble.

He couldn't transform into a dragon, but he could see like one, hear like one, he mighty was his strength like one, despite being contained in a human body. His mother was afraid of him as he grew older and stronger and only taught him dragon-tongue so that if he did ever encounter men he could not communicate with them.

After Afanasy had grown to young adulthood the man who fathered him came back to those hills to re-express his gratitude for the dragon keeping it's promise. But instead of finding the woman he thought he'd find, or even the dragon itself, he found a young man with hair like the sun and eyes like the sea. He asked him why he was in a dragon's lair in his human language and the boy's face scrunched up in confusion and so the old man gave it a try to speak dragon and the boy responded that he killed it, lying that he didn't know it was actually his mother so the old man would pity him and take him away. The old man then realized that the boy was his son. He looked just like him, save for the striking features that contrasted from his gray hair and faded hazel eyes.

He had the boy come home with him, but told him not to tell anyone that he was his son. The boy agreed only to make him look obedient, but then he asked how his father knew how to speak dragon so fluently, and his father simply told him he would soon found out.

The village had prospered well without the dragon terrorizing them and it thrived and became a giant kingdom with the old man as king. He had come to tame many dragons and they all lived in harmony together in his kingdom.

Once at the castle he introduced him to his wife and beautiful grown daughter as an orphan of the dragon he first confronted, and the queen thought it very strange for the offspring of a dragon to be human, but she never questioned her opinion aloud.

For the first time in the young dragon boy's life did he ever feel the emotion of love and that was when he set his eyes on his father's fair daughter. She curtsied and he took her hand when she offered it to him, but he looked to his father for guidance in the matter and his father took his wife's hand and demonstrated by kissing her knuckles, and so the boy copied and the girl giggled at his limited knowledge of social interaction.

Together they all lived in the palace and the kingdom welcomed the stranger as their new prince since the king had decided to adopt him to his family. Afanasy kept his name and took the title to heart and wooed his new people with his striking looks, and earned the affection of the friendly dragons with his elegant speech, making allies with them immediately. They grew to love him more than their king since they shared such a deep bond of kinship, but they kept their allegiance to their present king.

He never wanted to leave his new, yet old, sister's side and so she taught him to speak human; and deeper and deeper did he fall in love with her with each passing day. In the back of his mind was the idea swirling that he deserved more than the simple title prince though, and he desired to be a king, and he yearned for his half sister to rule beside him as queen. One night the ruthless dragon blood in his veins boiled and he could not stand it any longer.

Quietly, he slithered about the castle, his dragon eyes fully able to see in the pitch black of night; they could see everything, be it through a storm, or fog, or fire. He brought with him a dagger and made first to a guards room where they were sleeping and he slit the man's throat and heaved his dead body over his shoulder and continued on to his parent's room. He stabbed them in the heart and staged the dead guard to make it look like he was the one to kill his king and queen then kill himself in grief of his actions.

The next day they were discovered dead, and Afanasy and his sister were wed and proclaimed the new king and queen of Adedia.

More did his dragon mind churn in his head the idea of more power. Afanasy finally had his dream fulfilled of having his sister beside him as his queen, and a new dream came to him. The dream of ruling the whole world with his sister beside him, no longer enough. He wants an heir, he wants his kingdom expanded.

He forced himself on her multiple times a day to make sure she became impregnated, then when her monthly cycle had stopped he eagerly went off to broaden his boarders, leaving her home alone during her pregnancy.

Afanasy goes to his army of dragons and they happily swear their allegiance and he rides them off to conquer the world. He meets other riders from around the world with hearts as hard as his and they join their forces and they follow the first dragon born as their king and fight with him. The massive legion of dragon born and human born riders all behind their fearless king struck at humanity with all their fiery might.

The gods are scurrying about in the heavens trying to find a new solution that will solve everything without exterminating anyone. If they make it cold the humans will perish again, and humanity had advanced so far. No one knew that Loki had moved the sun. Then the god that first suggested the winter offered an idea of enchanting human warriors with the power of ice, that way they could defend themselves and not nearly as much life will be lost. These wintery elementals would be able to will ice and snow to fight off the dragons and force them back into their mountains, no matter the heat, and no matter the cold.

So it came to be as a god came down in human form to visit Afanasy's pregnant wife. She was almost due and her husband was going to sneak back to be there for the birth. The god told her he would bestow upon the unborn child the powers of ice and snow to destroy her father. The queen considered the proposition, she used to love her brother deeply, but ever since he forced her into bed her love diminished, and so she agreed for the god to give her unborn child the powers of winter.

She went into labor three days later and Afanasy just missed the birth of his first born child, a lovely daughter, with hair like snow, and blue eyes like her father. As he bent forward to see his precious daughter, whom in loved instantly, better, he went to pick her up, but when his fingers contacted her pale skin ice came out and traveled up his arms, then spread to his while body, quickly making him a frozen statue. His wife then had his frozen body thrown from a nearby cliff to destroy him once and all.

The fallen kingdoms all over the world rejoiced at the death of their tyrant, and the gods thought their plan had worked brilliantly. The dragons and their ruthless riders grew furious and to avenge their dead king they lead an all out war against the world, and soon the earth became scorched from the fire breathing beasts as they stained the ground with blood and death.

The gods quickly scoured the burning earth for the mightiest of hearts and enchanted them with the powers of ice and snow, and set them off in retaliation against the holocaust of mankind. The elementals froze the hearts of the dragons and this caused them to control them to do their bidding. They set the dragons after their own riders and then they slayed the dragons by decapitating them, and the giants from the top of the world came down to tow the dead carcasses away and build their homes from their massive bones.

The elementals drove the dragons near extinction before the gods intervened once more, but the only one they couldn't take the powers away from was Afanasy's daughter. She had been born with them, and even though the gods gave her the powers they could not break the law of her birth right, once born they were her powers until death. As the gods redeemed their magic back from the rest of the mortals Loki was gluing a shattered, frozen Afanasy back together with dragon blood to melt the ice and to make him whole again, but the damage was done, and he could not bring the man back to life, so he took him and his remaining dragons to hide in the towering Adalinda mountains of modern day Germany, now called the Zugspitze mountains. He hid them deep in within the numerous caves where the gods couldn't see them, or the dead body of their master. Loki enchanted Afanasy to come back to life as an reincarnation, but he wouldn't remember who he was, it was the best Loki would do for his favorite trouble maker like himself.

His daughter lived long as the earth's savior. She birthed five children and they all carried the ice inside, but the ice laid dormant, waiting for the return of Afanasy to trigger it. Her children lived long and their children also carried the ice in their bodies, but it laid dormant as well.

And there the legend ended.

It has been said that Afanasy has risen since his death, and his grandchildren through the generations had always managed to kill him with their awakened powers of winter whenever he is found alive again. Afanasy truly never did remember his past lives, but he always knew something was missing, like he had lived through many things before, and through his second rising he wrote a journal and prayed to the gods above that he would always be able to find it if he ever returned to the earth again, but the gods did not grant his prayers, but Loki the great trickster happily obliged and made sure to always keep his eye out for the reborn dragon man and return his journal to him.

Now, in the present day of nineteenth century Norway, the gods were severely weakened by their humans converting to Christianity, and losing faith in them. They grew weaker as their heroics became meager fairy tales to tuck children in bed with. Many of the tales becoming lost, or muddled into silly stories, their teachings gone. But, when Afanasy had been reborn for the first time in ten thousand years, the gods poured the rest of their strength they had into the last known decedent, and the last elemental they would ever bear, and they withered away into dust in death as she was born' the strongest elemental to ever live, the icy strength of an army buried deep in her blood.

* * *

**Please tell me what you think of my fairy tale. I didn't keep to tradition because there's not a lot of Slavic myth that's known that connects with what I wanted to tell, and I needed Loki in it so bad because he loves his mayhem, so I did because I can. :) I'm more of a Thor person myself, but what are you gonna do?**


	8. A long night

**This didn't take me three days to write and rewrite and rewrite... No not at all... I am perfectly content with my writing abilities to never have to start over from scratch... (I'm sitting on a throne of lies)**

* * *

Elsa stayed with Peter to make sure he fell asleep, and then she quietly slipped out from under him and left to go find a guard like she promised. She prayed the whole way to the guards quarters that she wouldn't run into anyone, whatsoever, her mind was spinning enough with conspiracies that she was constantly trying to just stay upright as she tip-toed through the empty halls.

She didn't even acknowledge the courtesy to knock on the thick door and pushed it open and walked straight forward, and opened the second door that led to the rooms of her servants. She went up to one at random and this time remembered herself and knocked loudly. A sleep drench man stumbled to the door quickly and opened it to the queen.

"Your majesty?" He rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't really dreaming of this absurd circumstance. The queen herself, physically, came to him for something? She probably didn't even know his name! Whatever was the matter, she must be very desperate.

"I need you to take a shift to keep watch over Peter's room tonight. I don't want _anyone_ to go down that hallway, for _any_ reason. Only Anna and myself are allowed to see him, do you understand?"

"Y-yes your majesty. I will be ready at once."

"Thank you Gregory." She gave him a small smile to express her gratitude as he blushed at his false assumption. Of course she knew her guards names, she was queen! She was tacitly required to.

"If I may?" He called out as she began to leave, he was in deep thought about his mistake that he almost missed her. "Could I ask to know when I will be relieved?"

"Four hours time. Have the room next to your wakened to replace you."

"Thank you your majesty."

She nodded to him and swiftly quitted the area to go to her study. Her eyes were wide open with curiosity, too wide to possibly close them for the night. When she reached her study she opened the door and found a fire already lit in the fireplace, and her heart stopped mid thump in her chest.

"Who's there?!" A scared voice interrogated at the opened door, it's owner hunched down behind a couch to remain unseen by the intruder.

"It's me, Anna. This is my office. Who else would come in here?" Elsa answered with a kind smile towards her sister's antics as she popped her head out over the arm of the leather couch.

"I've just been hearing a lot of footsteps outside for a while now, maybe I'm just paranoid. I don't know." Anna fully stood up, the thick tome she was reading still in her hands, a finger keeping her place.

Elsa closed the door behind her and walked over her sister, staring at the book in her hands, trying to think why it looked familiar. Anna followed her sister's gaze and traced it to the massive book in her hands and stampered out an excuse for going through her sister's things. "That king Viktor just really reminded me of those old stories of dragon riders. He looked like that man that was born from the dragon doesn't he?" She raised the heavy thing up and skimmed through the ancient words with her finger to find where she was looking for and began to recite, "He was born with hair like the sun and eyes more pure than the oceans." When she looked up to see her sister's reaction she only saw pure, unadulterated horror in those intense blue eyes of hers.

"What's wrong?" Anna threw the book on the ground where a cloud of dust rose from the dusty thing and powdered the wooden floor with it's tangible history. Elsa dashed for her chair behind her desk and Anna followed her, with her arms out to catch her if she fell. Her chair made her feel empowered and safe; no one could hurt her there.

"That's why I came in here... To go over that blasted story... Story." She snorted, but her face was void of humor. "It's more than a story." Anna barely heard that last part as Elsa's voice faded into a mere whisper, and her pupils almost over taking her irises.

"What do you mean?" Anna crouched down beside Elsa's chair and looked up at her smoothed out, blank face.

"It's time to tell you I suppose." Elsa looked down and into Anna's blue eyes, they were no where as intense, or cold, as hers. Anna was everything warm in the world, while she was everything cold. "You might as well make yourself comfortable somewhere. This will take a while."

"Come over to the couch with me. We can sit together." Anna suggested and Elsa gave her a small nod and rose smoothly despite the storm raging inside her. Anna slid her arm around Elsa's shoulders and they walked over to the couch together and sat they sat down, and Elsa let Anna keep holding her, letting Anna's encouraging strength penetrate her chilly skin.

"It happened after Peter sent that last letter. It explains why we never got a response from him all this time..."

Elsa retold the account of Peter's abduction, of when he befriended Abejide, when he was traded as a slave through the years, then to when he and Abejide were sent to Viktor's palace. At first Elsa would begin crying too hard to talk, but that made Anna start crying too hard to listen, and they'd cry together in their arms until that tiny storm passed, and then Elsa would tell a little more, and Anna would just start bawling for the poor man, and Elsa would end up holding her quaking body for a few minutes as she calmed down, and Elsa wondered how she never broke down with Peter. Was it because he was so broken that there was no more room?

They didn't know how much time had passed when Elsa was finally able to tough it out and get through the whole thing, but she immediately wished she was alone when she did finish.

"So, this means Viktor's that character? I just don't want to believe that..." Anna murmured quietly into the silence.

"Afanasy was his name. It means 'immortal'." Elsa added her little foot note.

"But he died! His daughter froze him and his wife had him thrown over a cliff!" Anna cried out in anger at the frustration of the whole situation; trying to reason the possibility that they were dealing with a fairy tale.

"Loki used dragon... That's it! That's not possible, but it explains it. Dragon blood. He used it to glue Afanasy back together, but the damage was already done."

"That was the most rational thing you've ever said." Anna joked sarcastically. "Don't forget that, if this is all true, this makes you his, like, a million greats, great grand daughter.

"Shit... Shit! Oh damn me to hell!" Elsa wailed, but it all made sense. No it didn't. Yes it did. No, it couldn't be, it can't be. "That's why he was staring at me like that the whole time. I'm his damn daughter! His _damned_ daughter." Elsa's voices became strangled in her throat as she began to sob. She was so tired, from not sleeping well the past few nights, her mind was loose in her skull and all her dams were cracked.

Anna cradled her big sister once again, trying to soothe her aching soul. "Well, at least you aren't his sister... Do you remember what happened to her?" She asked rhetorically, but Elsa still answered in an angry, quivering voice.

"He raped her! Over and over and over! Just to have me! Well not _me_, but me!"

"Elsa! Calm down, you're too excited!" Anna warned with a panic stricken voice. Her skin was turning red from the cold Elsa was giving off. Elsa couldn't calm down though. She was an elemental. Destined to destroy a man she never knew. Her ice was always meant to be the most powerful of all, meant to kill, not to control. The gods didn't have time to worry about consequences, they were dying; they put too much in her not knowing, not caring about what would happen.

"Elsa, please, just calm down." Anna begged, trying to keep her voice steady. Elsa's frost was stinging and becoming almost unbearable, but Anna didn't dare move, either herself, or push Elsa away. "I'm right here, and I'm not going to let anything hurt you." Elsa looked up to see Anna's face and saw much more than she bargained for; practically nothing. Her ice had extinguished the fire and so the room was cloaked in the darkness of the late night.

"Oh God, I'm sorry. No! I'm going to get away. I'm not doing it to protect you, I'm doing it to calm myself down. Why don't you try and start the fire again?" She said in protest to Anna pinning her against her, and Anna let go reluctantly, but she never made a sound to get up and so Elsa continued, "Please?" Then she heard the squeaking that equates to someone lifting off a leathery couch and heard muffled footsteps go over to where Anna thought the fireplace was.

"Can't you cast light from your ice?" Anna angrily asked after tripping over something very heavy.

Elsa of course hesitated, she just froze the room, why would she want to make more cold? But, when she heard Anna bump into something else she conceded and focused on making a snowball in her hands just big enough to illuminate the room for Anna to see where she was going.

"Ah! I was way off!" Anna shouted with a chuckle at going too far past the fire place, and finally Elsa felt a little twinge at the corners of her lips.

Anna successfully started another roaring fire, and Elsa happily evaporated her snowball away into the air as Anna came back over to sit with her. Elsa stared at the flames licking at the stones of the pit. She wanted to feel it's warmth, but it was too far away, she could only see it, she wanted more, she didn't want to be made of ice. She wanted to be normal.

"So... Now what?" Anna piped up after shifting her eyes from Elsa's glowing face and the raging fire, thinking of something insightful to say like her sister would, but failing miserably.

"I don't know." Elsa answered, still gazing at the fire, even beginning to envy it. It didn't have to deal with life's problems. Fire only had one problem, and that was to stay lit, and to Elsa that seemed like the simplest life she could imagine.

"Well, we both know we need to get Viktor out of here, if not for Peter's sake, then for yours." Anna went on, and Elsa finally turned her face towards her.

"Why do you always think of me like you're not just as important? Yes! I am the queen, and yes! I am the first born, but that doesn't mean you're anything less than me." Elsa asked extremely irritated. Ever since their parents dies it's been this way; Anna taking care of her.

"I don't want you to worry about me. I never have wanted you to worry about me." Anna retorted, her eyes glaring, but her heart was very light. "I've just always known you to be better at everything, so I just go with it. You're the smart one, the one that always has a plan. Like, with that thing with Flornes! You handled that without me, and that's when I knew for sure that I could never match you, and I was sure I'd never want to. Wow... I thought I'd never say this to you... I'm glad I'm not the first born. I don't think I could handle the responsibility. I don't think I'd want to, quite honestly."

"Even when I ran away?"

"You swore to protect us at your coronation. You thought yourself a threat and upheld your promise. That was very responsible. Maybe not the best way to have handled it, but still! You protected us, and that's what counts. You always know what to do."

"I don't want to always know what to do. It's very difficult. I wish I could just be a princess again. I wish we could be children again. I'd do anything to be a child again." Elsa looked over to the tome laying discarded on the carpet beyond the couch. "I'd give anything for this to all just be a story, and that mother is going to close the book soon, any second now."

Anna was too stunned at her sister's feelings. They were finally saying what they've wanted to say for years, and they felt empty now, everything was laid bare; like they had nothing left to give.

"But, that's a child's dream. I'm not a child. I am a queen, no matter how many times I wish it, a queen I will always be." Elsa looked back to her little sister, and she grabbed her hand, squeezing it gently.

"And your sister I will always be. There has to be a way to get rid of him that will be painless." Anna let her eyes wander over to the vast bookcases that lined the walls; only a small fraction of what was in the royal library. "Maybe thinking like children wouldn't be such a bad try." A cryptic smile crept onto Anna's face and Elsa's brow rose in curiosity at such a foolish idea.

"How do you mean?" Elsa indulged her and Anna looked into her sister's eyes and the story of the dragons riders unfold in them. She could see it all: Afanasy, his wife, his daughter, the gods. The whole tale alive like a moving picture inside Elsa's ice blue eyes.

"Well, what if Robert also has these ice powers? He's your nephew, maybe there's enough relation for him to carry the powers in him like in the story. His children's powers only came out when he was reborn. Maybe if he touches Robert he'll freeze like before!"

"But how would we stop him from being born again?" Elsa asked, not falling for the idea at all.

"Kill all the dragons? It was their blood that glued him back together, so maybe the blood can heal. We make sure to destroy all the dragon blood we can so he can't heal... Wait what?" She said shaking her head at the ridiculous string of words that just flew out of her mouth.

"No, I think you're on to something. Loki made him reincarnate, but only after he put Afanasy back together again. If I could freeze him, and break him apart then he can't come back, so long as he can't be whole again. Dragon blood bonds him together, so, without it, he can't revive unless he's one whole body."

"But, how do we know that for sure? Loki isn't the greatest at having a sound mind. Maybe he thought putting back together would make him alive again."

"Yes, but why put him back together first, instead of just grant him life and let the pieces assemble themselves?"

"Well, I guess that makes sense."

"No, it doesn't. Listen to us! We sound like a bunch of-"

"Kids? Well at least this way we're planning something. This is the first time I've ever gotten to collaborate with you on something. Don't ruin this for me by writing it off as childish gibberish." Anna was serious, her mouth set in a frown and her brows anchored in annoyance.

"I'm sorry I- I just-" Elsa found herself at a lost of words for the second time that day.

"Don't be sorry. I know, I understand how insane this sounds. I'm not a child anymore Elsa. I _do_ know how to be an adult."

"I'm not saying you don't know how to be an adult. I appreciate that you can still connect with your inner child-like spirit."

"I know a better way to channel it too. Let's go to the library up stairs." Anna jumped up and held out her hand for Elsa. "We can go through old tales and try to come up with ideas that way."

"Anna, you should go get some sleep. I can see bags under your eyes." Elsa said taking the hand offered and letting Anna help her up.

"Ugh. You sound like Kristoff now. I just can't sleep well because I'm worried Robert's going to wake me up at any second. I sleep better during the day, trust me." Anna led them to the door and opened it, and brought them out into the hallway.

"Great minds think alike. I don't want both of us falling asleep at the table tomorrow morning when we eat with Viktor." Anna just kept walking, leading them to a nearby staircase.

"Well, we all don't want things to happen, but! They do anyways, and we've got to accept them." Anna remarked with an air finality.

"What if Robert wakes up any moment because he's hungry. Is Kristoff going to nurse him?" Elsa made a very good point, and Anna knew it, and so she flung her hands up in surrender.

"Fine!" Anna swiftly changed course and dragged Elsa along to go back to her and Kristoff's room. "I'll go get him, but I'm not going to sleep tonight if you aren't."

"You say that now." Elsa jeered lightheartedly with a smirk, and Anna scowled, but kept her face forwards.

Once arriving at her room Anna made Elsa stay outside and she went to retrieve a peaceful Robert from his crib next to her bed, then she brushed a light kiss on Kristoff's forehead and whispered an I love you before leaving with a swaddled Robert in her arms, and shutting the door quietly.

"Can I hold him?" Elsa asked with a giant grin on her face at the sight of the sleeping infant, holding out her arms expectantly.

"That's why you really wanted me to get him isn't it?" Anna asked through narrowed at eyes at her sister's ploy.

"A little." Elsa giggled, and Anna placed her son in her sister's waiting arms.

"At least you're not afraid anymore. You've come a long way." Anna said almost absently as she stroked Robert's hair head.

"I know. I have haven't I? Haven't I?" Elsa asked enthusiastically to Robert. Anna beamed at the precious moment and then had them both start walking again to go to the library. Robert meanwhile was still fast asleep, even as they ascended the stairs. Elsa was very careful to be very smooth with her steps, and it took all she had to look where she was stepping, instead at Robert's calm face.

They reached the two massive oak doors of the library and Anna managed to push them open all by herself, while Elsa thought it more interesting to play with Robert's tiny, fidgeting hand.

"Where do you think we should start?" Anna said slightly breathless, and she gently took back her baby boy, making Elsa's face contort into an exaggerated frown. "If you haven't forgotten, we do have a king to get rid of?" She said in a hushed tone when Robert started to become a little fussy in her arms.

"No, I haven't forgotten. I just never get to play with him. I'm always trying to be with Peter whenever I can." Elsa said sadly, following Anna in the expansive room, crammed with cases upon cases of overflowing books.

"Do you want to start with German fairy tales first? Isn't he German?" Anna began to head over to that section, knowing where all the fairy tales were by heart. She could find a specific book within them with her eyes closed.

"I don't know where he's actually from. The legend never says, but I think Loki put him there, so I don't think he's actually German." Elsa stayed put, mulling over his home origin. "Blonde hair and blue eyes sounds German, but I just know that he's not, despite that accent of his." Elsa shrugged her shoulders, not caring to try and think about it anymore, and then looked around for her missing Anna, and tried to follow the sound of her sister's footsteps. "Where'd you go?"

"I'm over here!" Anna went bounding down a row of bookshelves to present herself so Elsa could find her and Elsa hurried over to see what book Anna had under her arm. "This might be of some help." Anna said with a hopeful gleam in her eye, and she stuck out her hip opposite to the one holding Robert, and the book stuck out enough for to take and in the moonlight that shone through the wide windows from the walls and ceilings she could read the title, "Ein Argosy der deutschen Fabeln". (An argosy of German Fables)

"Anything is worth a try right now." Elsa spoke distractedly, walking away towards a table thumbing through the thick book before realizing she could just look at the table of contents.

"Have you read it?" Anna asked following Elsa who was sitting down at a large wooden table, not bothering to find more light to read with.

"No. I never really read a lot of fiction when I was little. I read mostly history." She answered, squinting at the pages to see them better in the dim light then suddenly she could see the pages perfectly as Anna brought over a lantern and set it next to the book. "Thank you." Elsa said absent mindlessly, completely engrossed in the stunning drawings decorating the borders of the equally beautiful writing.

Anna sat down beside Elsa and made sure Robert was still asleep, which he was, before looking over and joining her sister in the story.

"Listen to this Anna, "Der alte und der junge Hirsch". The Old and The Young stag." Elsa translated from the old German text.

"I know what it says silly. I've read this book at least a thousand times." Anna said with a sly smile.

"How long has it been since you've read German?" Elsa lightly interrogated and Anna actually thought about it.

"I dunno... A while. I can still read it though." Anna countered.

"Then you read it." Elsa smirked and slid the book over so it was in front of an incredulous Anna. "Go on then." Elsa encouraged with her own sly smile.

"We'd probably be here until the sun rises if I did." Anna tried to shy away in her seat from the table, sounding as humble as she could. She could still read German pretty well, but talking and reading are two different things, and she knew Elsa wanted her to read it aloud, just like her foreign language professor, Oskar, years ago. "I want to hear _you_ read it. You have a nice reading voice."

"You've only ever heard me read shipping reports." Elsa commented with a cocked brow, and a smile, pulling the book back in front of her.

"Yeah, well you made them sound half way interesting." Anna went on, genuinely.

"So did mother." Elsa smiled in fond memory, but Anna never heard her mother read shipping reports. She made, nay, forced entirely, her mother to read her princess stories. She didn't want to hear of anything real, she wanted magical adventures, but Anna smiled too from her own memories.

"Do you want me to read it in German, or do you want me to translate it?" Elsa asked looking over to Anna looking away from the book down at her baby. Anna raised her face back up at the question and answered, "What ever is easier for you."

_'They're both easy for me...'_ "Translate it is." Elsa looked back to the colorful pages, yellowed by time, and began to read:

"An Old Stag, whom kindly nature had allowed to live to the age of a hundred years, once said to one of his grandchildren: "I can still well remember the time when man had not yet invented the noisy shot-gun."

"What a happy time that must have been for our race," sighed the Young Stag.

"You jump too quickly at conclusions," answered the Old Stag. "The times were no better than they are now; they were only different. Instead of the shot-gun men had the bow and arrow, and we were just as badly off then as we are now."

"That's like what's happened... You're the shot-gun, and Afantasy's daughter was the bow and arrow." Anna remarked quietly in observation.

"Afanasy." Elsa corrected tenderly.

"That's what I said." Anna's brow anchored in confusion, not hearing her mistake.

"I guess I'm just too tired to hear right."

"We're both working ourselves ragged." Anna remarked. "I know you haven't been sleeping well either. I don't see how Kristoff gets to be so lucky. He's not a real prince, or a mother either."

"I'm sure he's struggling on the inside." Elsa said, knowing that he always felt inadequate living in a castle, married to a princess, and being the brother-in-law to a incumbent queen. Of course he never told Anna of his insecurities, no matter how many times Elsa urged him to.

**_"What is she going to do? Think less of you? I don't think anyone thinks less of you than yourself."_**

**_"Really?"_**

**_"Yes, really. Stop beating yourself up. She loves you and that's that. Anna doesn't just quit loving someone. I'm living proof."_**

"Sure, harvesting ice is rough business."

"Well, let's get back to the book. If we're not going to sleep, then we should read. It's going to a long couple of days ahead of us." Elsa said before she began to read another fable, to dissect it begging for help from the dead authors in how to get rid of an annoying king, only here to quite possibly destroy her.


	9. To you, ten thousand years from now

"My liege?" A man called out, knowing it could prove fatal to wake his king, but his king was thrashing about rather strangely. Maybe, he would be spared.

* * *

Black. No, even more dark than that. That's death. No, that's what it feels like when you're almost dead. You can't hear, you can't see, you can't feel, you can't taste, you can't smell. It's pitch... dark. Blank. Painless. It's so painless that you actually feign an ache. It's no where, but everywhere. You want to feel something so desperately, but then again you just want to not feel like you want to feel. You want to forget you ever knew how to remember. That's what it feels like when God won't let you in heaven, but He also won't let you go to hell. You're stuck in the chasm He designed for poor, wretched souls like you.

He thought he could see a light. It felt like at least five eternities had passed by the time he remembered he knew how to remember, and he remembered that you can't see pain. You can see blood, you can see the bone, white and broken, and protruding awkwardly from your leg, but you can't see the pain. You can't fathom what it looks like.

His flesh seared and smoke rose from the almost fatal wound as a man dabbed some of the thick, sticky blood over it. Fortunately it was over fast and the tissue grew and reformed and strengthened and bonded again. When the blood was washed away there wasn't a mark to be seen. He'd conquered death once more. If he wasn't so much more than a mere mortal he would've died. His skin was thicker than normal, and the man that smeared the dragon blood on the back of his neck found that out first hand. He also found out that his king's skin was unnatural in every way. It was incredibly soft and smooth, but the most astonishing fact to him, it was hairless; hence why it was so smooth. The blonde man laying face down on his table before him was not human, he couldn't be. Humans have hair everywhere. Tiny little fair colored hairs that you can't see, it's what gives humans their distinctive texture.

* * *

The blonde awoke, not on an operating table, but in a stranger's bed. His eye flew open and he bolted up in panic, not caring for the man beside him who woke him. He analysed the room, every crevice and tiny cob web that the maid thought she had gotten earlier because she couldn't see it, there's no way she could've, light never shone there to reflect off the silky threads. Viktor didn't need light to see. That's why the wait in the abyss was torture. Even dragon's eyes can't break through the optical barriers of death.

"Are you okay!" The man beside him shouted angrily, tired of being ignored.

"I'm in a bed, in a room, in a... castle..."

"Queen Elsa of Arendelle's castle, my lord." The man went on, coaxing the confused king.

"Yes, Queen Elsa... Of Arendelle." He sunk back into his pillows, and shut his eyes, closing the big, strange world out.

He fell into this spells of amnesia a lot. He reincarnated a lot more than history bothered to remember. Viktor didn't know the world knew of his history. He didn't know people believed him to be a myth. When he woke sometimes, he'd have absolutely no clue where he was and so to stave of fear he'd just start from the smallest place he was and grow bigger to remember. A woman offered this tender advice to him... It felt like eons ago practically. Time had ravaged his mind terribly so he could never find himself in it, so he'd always feel like something was missing. He knew the woman had hair the color of night, but that's it. No stars, no moons, no planets, nothing. Just dark.

He snapped his eyes open again. He wasn't afraid of the dark, but he didn't like it. It made him feel uncomfortable, and he unknowingly has spent all his lives trying to conquer that one feeling, the ever cloaking of darkness and how it consumes you whole without a single thought.

"What time is it?"

"It's four thirty-one." The man said specifically, knowing of what happened to the last man who didn't do so, and the thought made his spine cringe as he heard the last man's spine crack in his ears. You don't want to read how it was cracked.

"Why are you in here?" Viktor looked to the man beside him, his face smooth, not a trace of anger anywhere, but still the man's spine cringed again.

"You were thrashing around."

"I was, was I?" Viktor looked back at the wall at the end of the room, trying to admire the wallpaper, but just not understanding how to grasp a polite act like that.

"Yes, my lord."

"Well, I'm not thrashing around anymore am I?"

"No, my lord."

"Then leave."

The man simply bowed and got the hell out of there, without another words or look. He knew better.

Viktor rose a hand and squeezed at the tip of the bridge of his nose, and he let his eyes close once more.

A delighted giggle rang out.

It was in his head.

"Get out." He demanded into the early morning air, his voice more annoyed than frustrated. Then the giggle evolved into words.

**_"Don't you want to play with me A-fancy pants?"_**

"Now." He strained the cogs in his mind into overdrive and willed her melodic voice away from his consciousness.

Who was she?

* * *

"Anna? Love, wake up." Elsa shook Anna's bare shoulder gently, so not to disturb Robert nursing fervently.

"What!?" Anna jumped a little in the stiff wooden chair, and dislodged Robert from her nipple and she quickly rested back and guided his hungry mouth back and he suckled again without hesitation.

"I told you you'd fall asleep on me." Elsa said smirking as she hunched over her book again and poured over the same paragraph for the thirtieth time. "This was a great idea five hours ago, but now I don't even know what these words say. They're starting to float off the page. I think I'm going to have to solve this problem the old fashion way." She gently closed the book and placed it on top of seven others in a stack to her right. "Head on, and hope for the best."

"Can't blame us for trying." Anna yawned, carefully.

Elsa squinted over at the wall to the west and read the clock. "It's almost four thirty. The way I see it, if we go to bed now, we've got at least a good three hours before we need to get up to get ready for breakfast."

"How could I think of eating at a time like this?" Anna asked, trying to stifle an even bigger yawn than before, and Elsa smiled tiredly, holding her head up with her hand, looking at her sleepy sister.

"He's managing just fine it seems."

"Yes, but he's a baby. All babies do is eat and poop, and then if you're lucky they might just sleep, but you've gotta be pretty damn lucky."

"Well, when this whole Viktor thing is over, I'll be much more free to help you out with him, and also to alleviate the stress from Kristoff too."

"Don't use big words like avivalate around me at this kind of hour Elsa." Anna weakly barked, and Elsa couldn't hold back the laugh that bubbled from her throat. "What?"

"Nothing, nothing. I'm just tired."

"Me too."

"Then let's get you back to bed."

"But, I never went to bed."

"Then let's get you in it for the first time."

"But, there's... Stairs."

"Hey, you're the one that wanted to come up here. You get your little butt up and march down them."

"Grr you." Anna scowled at her, but she ultimately waited for Robert to finish up and then slipped her sleeve back on, and then with Elsa pressing her against her so she wouldn't fall, they both walked down the stairs and went to Anna and Kristoff's room.

"I miss having my room next to yours. It's such a long walk now." Elsa whined as she opened the door for Anna to walk through.

"I'll move back tomorrow." Anna lighthearted joked, but Elsa took it to heart for a second before feeling the burn of sarcasm come off.

"Watch it, or I'll have your things sent back without your notice."

"I'm too tired to fight." Anna put Robert back in his crib, kissed the tips of her fingers and brushed them on his forehead, then walked over to the bed, but Elsa stopped her and pulled her close. A very rare occurrence, for Elsa to hug Anna first. Not because Elsa didn't like to enact the hug first, but because Anna always beat her to it. Anna collapsed against Elsa's body, almost making Elsa drop her before her sleepy mind could register the sudden full weight of her sister falling onto her.

"Silly girl. I'm not your bed." Elsa yelled in a playful whisper, dragging Anna up onto her feet again so she could hug her properly.

"Then why'd you stop me from getting into it?" Anna complained into Elsa's shoulder, much to tired to reciprocate the hug right now.

"Because I want to thank you, for everything last night, and this morning, first. I don't know what I would do without you Anna."

"Sleep better probably."

"Oh, just go to sleep then." Elsa smiled and ended up having to pull Anna over to the bed and let her drop on it. Anna crashed into her unconsciousness the moment her body touched the mattress. Elsa managed to lift up Anna's legs so she could grab the comforter from underneath them and pull it over her body, then she tucked it around her, making her look nice and snug. Then she ran her hand through her sister's soft, strawberry blonde hair, and bent down to kiss her forehead and she wished she could just stay there, with her, but she wasn't alone in the room anymore, Anna. She had a husband asleep directly beside her, and a little baby boy at the foot of the bed, gently falling back asleep as well. Elsa didn't belong there anymore. The thought didn't make her as sad as she thought it would, and so she lifted up again, still combing her sister's hair with her fingers, in hopes that it would help it not become so matted in the morning.

"I love you so much Anna." Elsa purred and then she forced herself to retract her hand and walk away. She tried to just give Robert a passing smile, but failed miserably, and she looked down at him, and copied her sister's earlier gesture and she kissed the tips of her fingers and brushed them on his forehead, then she felt satisfied to leave the little family be, and out the door she went silently to go back to her room a few hallways away.

* * *

The sun was shining brilliantly in the crisp summer morning, but it;s warmth was trapped behind the thick curtains in Elsa's room. Helga quietly entered the queen's room and slowly pulled away the curtains to reveal the day outside and the light shone on Elsa's sleeping face.

"Elsa, my dear, it's time to wake up." Helga didn't chose to scold the woman for waking late like she would've any other time because she never had scolded Elsa for anything, so she didn't know how to go about with her. Elsa was always prompt, so Helga know something must be very wrong to cause the mistress to be late.

Elsa's eyes opened in one slow motion and she looked over to the woman beside her, and frowned. Reality set in. She had to get up and be a queen. No more time for dreams. "Thank you Helga." Elsa pulled down her blankets and revealed that she never changed out of her dress from yesterday.

"Long day yesterday my dear?"

"And night, and morning." Elsa answered sitting up and swinging her legs off the bed. She extended her hand out for Helga to take and help pull her up, she knew she'd fall down from a head rush without her aid.

Helga took her hand stretched out and grabbed for the other one as well and went on to ask, "What time did you finally retire?"

"What time is it?"

"Almost seven thirty."

Elsa's eyes went terribly wide in panic.

"It's quite alright dear! Don't worry, I've just sent Anna to be woken up, and your honorary guest isn't even ready either."

Elsa sighed with relief and took back her hands when she found herself steady enough and walked over to her vanity and looked at herself in the mirror. She knew she looked horrible. Her face was void of color, save for the deep purple underneath her eyes. Her eyes seemed more bright than usual strangely enough. She thought the opposite would happen with all the emotions she's battled in the past twenty-four hours.

"About three hours ago Anna and I finally went to bed. We were..." She considered telling her the whole truth for a moment, but she couldn't find the words all of the sudden and so she only gave her the half story. "Bonding. She wanted me to read to her all night, and so I did, foolishly on my part. This is a very important day with our _honorary_ guest." She practically spit out the word honorary. Helga got her first hint and from that moment on knew she couldn't trust the man she was thought to think highly of.

"Well, I just leave you to get ready then dear. Take your time. As your mother used to say, queens are never late, everyone else is simply early." Helga turned and left Elsa alone to smile in her mirror at her mother's words. They comforted her beyond comparison to anything else.

* * *

"Come on Kristoff! Get up!" Anna barked, shaking the man's shoulders violently.

"I didn't think I'd have to go." He whined.

"Of course you have to go! You're the prince of Arendelle! You come to breakfast every morning, what is so different about today?"

Kristoff finally opened his eyes and sat up harshly, catching Anna before she fell down from him accidentally knocking her off his torso."There's going to be a king there. I'll just look like a fool!" Anna pressed her lips to his before he could say anything else.

"You won't look like a fool Kristoff. Now get up and get ready, please." Robert started to cry in his crib and Anna crawled off her husband to go assess her other baby.

"That's his diaper-needs-changing cry." Kristoff said getting out of bed finally.

"I know what it is." Anna replied and went over to the changing table and began to change his diaper.

They went on to do their own thing in silence. Anna was not a morning person whatsoever anymore, and so they usually got ready without a word between them everyday. It was comfortable for them. Kristoff got dressed in a somewhat regal looking casual outfit; Anna already dressed in a simple dress, not wanting to try and impress the foreign monster over scrambled eggs. Anna pinned Robert's fresh diaper on and tickled his little tummy, placing tender kisses all over him, his hands, his feet.

"Are you going to bring him with us? To meet this Viktor fellow?"

"Absolutely." Anna said with a wide smile. She still had the heart to believe her son could freeze Viktor, no matter how inconceivable the idea actually was.

* * *

"They're coming as I speak my lord." Wilbur told a waiting Viktor, sitting all alone at the expansive table. He didn't mean to be the first, he wanted to be the last to show.

"That's quite alright my good man. I don't mind. I am very patient." Viktor beamed up at Wilbur, and Wilbur simply nodded and walked off, coming to pass a briskly walking Kristoff carrying little Robert in his arms.

"They're not here yet?!" Kristoff half shouted, and continued to speed walk to the table seating one, and that one seated turning around to see who was speaking. "Oh, my apologies. I just thought my wife and her sister would be here by now." Kristoff went over to the once seated man who rose up to fully greet him. "My name is Kristoff, prince of Arendelle." He said, bowing his head respectively to Viktor.

"Yes! I've heard much about you last night when I arrived! You have a very lovely wife. I am king Viktor of Adelinda." Viktor bowed in his own false humility.

"I'm sorry the sister's are late. Anna broke a heel on one of her shoes on her way here and went to Elsa's room on the way. Then I had to change mister stinky pants here, and I'd figure they'd be here by now."

"They're fine. I don't mind." Yes he did. He smiled kindly and gestured for both of them to sit down, and Kristoff pulled out a chair for himself and they both sat. "Is this your new son?"

"Yep, Robert." Kristoff smiled proudly and showcased his bubbly baby. "Would you like to hold him?"

"May I?" He asked enthusiastically, a little too enthusiastically, but Kristoff paid no mind to it.

"Do you know how?"

"Yes, of course I know how." He laughed as he answered, studying how the father handled him to actually learn how. Kristoff took the man's word and stood up to bring him the baby and he placed him in Viktor's stiff arms. Viktor looked down at Robert's face, gazing at him intensely like it held a secret. Then he took his hand and delicately stroked the babe's face. He didn't freeze. His smile grew broader. He stroked the baby's cheek gently, seeing his reflection in Robert's bright silver eyes. "What a lovely set of eyes he has." He looked up at Kristoff to reassure himself that they were brown. "What a strange circumstance, for your boy to have such a rare color. Doesn't his mother have blue eyes?"

"Yes. We thought it odd too, but what are you going to do?"

"And he's so well behaved. He is very calm in the arms of a stranger."

"Yeah, we're lucky. He's never fussy a lot, just hungry all the time."

"We're here!" A distant voice shot through the room from the hall, and in came bounding a red head followed closely behind by a blonde. Again Viktor rose from his seat to respect the women's entrance, and that's when Anna's world came to a crashing halt as she saw Viktor return Robert back to Kristoff. She stopped short of the doorway, her breath caught in her throat, strangling her. Elsa stopped too and looked back to see Anna's utterly horrified face, then looked back over to the two men by the table, then looked back and went over to her sister.

"Anna come on, it'll be okay. We knew there wasn't a big chance he would freeze him." Elsa whispered grabbing Anna's hand and trying to pull her along. "It'll be okay." She breathed and Anna finally began to willingly follow her.

"I am very sorry to keep you two waiting. Anna kept insisting she should wear heels." Elsa put on a smile and spread the air around her with forced serenity and enthusiasm.

"Not a problem my lady." Viktor bowed and made to go pull out a chair for Elsa, while Kristoff went to pull out a chair for Anna.

"Do you want to hold him now?" Kristoff whispered into Anna's ear and she nodded her head slowly, trying to shake her shock away more than say yes.

"Thank you Viktor." Elsa tried with all her might to not spit out his name like venom. He never made a gesture or a sound as if it hurt him, and he simply went to sit down in his chair as servants brought out the numerous trays of various breakfast food for them to finally enjoy.


	10. Adagio

Breakfast went by surprisingly fast. Unfortunately, despite all of Kristoff's fears, he and Viktor really hit it off and Anna's heart shattered into tinier pieces at every laugh they shared together.

Elsa sat at the head of the table, Viktor to her left, Anna, holding Robert, to her right, and Kristoff to Anna's side. Much of the conversation went on between the two men, with Elsa popping in an occasional insightful quip. Anna just kept her eyes on Robert for something to distract her with. His eyes were deep and bright, he was actually seeing her, looking back, and finally a smile cracked her face and she kissed the tip of his nose.

Elsa kept looking over at the heartbroken, then cheerful, then heart broken, Anna and tried to think of a way to make her stay smiling. She was too far away to hold her hand, besides Anna's were holding a baby. She wanted to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly, but again, Anna was too far away from her. She decided that her food could convey a message and so as the men went on excitedly about horses and reindeer Elsa arranged a simple little saying with her breakfast, then she tapped her finger next to Anna's untouched plate and Anna looked up to her. Elsa turned her plate so Anna could read it better. It said I love you, made of of finely cut sausage and eggs. Anna grinned wildly, her heart rising back into her chest, healed completely.

"I love you too." Anna mouthed and Elsa took back her plate with a happy smile, feeling very accomplished at making her sister feel better.

When Robert started to cry, signaling he was hungry, breakfast was quickly finished and Anna excused herself to go nurse, and the other three went to Elsa's study.

"Please, have a seat." Elsa gestured for the men to sit on the couch in front of her desk; the couch her and Anna used to plot Viktor's banishment last night. Elsa went and grabbed her chair from behind her desk and rolled it out so that she could sit more near them and appear more friendly, and she parked it beside her desk and then sat down.

"Well, I think it's time to talk about what you're plans are while you're here Viktor." Elsa began, and Viktor relaxed back into the couch like it was his throne, and he effectively sent shivers down her spine. He was comfortable, and he wanted to control.

"I simply came to see if all the stories were correct about you, the so called "Ice queen". I can't say I'm disappointed." He gave her an arrogant smirk, and again her spine shivered, but she smiled it off and he never noticed how uncomfortable she was. Her heart cringed at the title.

"It took four years for you to finally come and visit?" Elsa jabbed at him, but he came back with a simple enough truth and her walls began to crumble.

"High in the mountains am I. News takes a little longer to reach the heavens. It takes a while to plan a journey as well, my dear. I had to find a good route to get here, and find a guide to lead me to your lovely kingdom."

Kristoff began to notice the temperature dropping a little, just a little though. He was used to the feeling, what with being around Elsa so much for the past few years. He gave her warning, whimpering look, coughing a little to make her look at him, and mild shock flashed through her eyes and she immediately thought of Peter. The temperature stopped dropping.

"I would love to go and see your castle that you built while I'm here." Viktor went on, and Elsa looked back at him.

"When would you like to go?"

"At your convenience. Like I've told you before, I know I came unannounced, and I'm greatly sorry. If you have no time, I will happily find someone who could take me there."

"I could take you if you want." Kristoff butted in, and Elsa's eyes glimmered with adoration. Kristoff knew something was off with her, and he was trying to make everything okay. "That way Elsa can continue with her duties and you can see whatever you want. I know this land like the back of my hand." He smiled proudly, and showcased the back of his hand of which he was an expert of apparently.

"Great! What a generous people you have Elsa. Everyone seems to be looking out for you."

"My parents taught me well." She said sheepishly.

"Oh come now, parents are merely tutors. In the end it's you that is making everyone feel safe and cherished, not them." Viktor complimented and a blush began to creep under Elsa's face as his intentions became more clear.

**_"He's here to take your hand in marriage Elsa. He wants you to rule beside him."_**Peter's words floated through her ears.

"Oh! I almost forgot. Tell me, has a young man come through here recently? Brown hair, brown eyes?" Viktor asked as innocently as he could.

Elsa's heart skipped a full beat, then another. "No, no, no one of that description."

"What about Peter?" If looks could kill, or at least maim. Curses of all kinds spewed from Elsa's eyes and Kristoff felt his blood boiling from her scolding glare.

"He left a few days ago." Elsa lied smoothly. "He has bright green eyes anyways." She lied again and Kristoff slumped deeper into his seat with shame from forgetting his royal promise to keep Peter a secret from the man sitting next to him. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh my guide had just come back from taking a young man of that description here. I was only wondering."

"Well, I guess he just breezed by us then. I usually always hear about newcomers." She smiled kindly, but her hands turned rock hard with cold. Kristoff was very fortunate to not be alone with her right now, no matter how much he tried to help before.

She looked back over at him, optically asking _"How could you?"_

He optically responded, _"I don't know."_


	11. Prestissimo

**_"A-fancy pants! A-fancy pants! There you are! Come! Come! I made a whole new lesson for you today!" A bubbly brunette cried out, running towards him as he walked the other way._**

**_"He'esth la vitha sie looth. Hi'ssa lissa." His face was set in a deep frown no matter how much he craved to hear her voice, he could not stand that nickname._**

**_"No, talk normal!" The girl scolded heatedly, spinning him around by his shoulders to face her._**

**_"Stop calling me that. Stupid girl." He repeated in her language, his heart fluttering at her anger with him._**

**_"Now was that so hard?" She grinned and then kissed him lovingly on his blushing cheek. "Hi'ssa lisso." ("Stupid boy.") She jeered into his ear, and he poked her hard in the ribs, and she yelped but when she saw him smiling at her discomfort she outright tackled him in the hallway, tickling him profusely, and on he cursed her in his dragon tongue as he howled with laughter._**

He woke up drenched in sweat. That was the most he's ever seen of that girl. It pained him to wake up from her. He didn't even know who she was, or, he just couldn't remember, and he was positive it was the former. He actually felt tears rise up in his eyes for the first time in his life. Well, this present life, at least. He slapped his face raw to get rid of them. Tears are for the weak willed. Pain is for the weak minded. He was neither.

* * *

It had been two days since that first morning with Viktor, and Elsa was finding every excuse she could to not see him, and he would humbly accept them and go off to bother someone else. Anna was a sure target, but he simply followed her until she closed her bedroom door in his face, saying she needed to change her son, and he doesn't want to see that, and it'll take a while.

Elsa was so determined to avoid him that she rarely saw anyone for those two days, except Peter. She went and slept beside him every night. She hardly saw Anna either and that was what really started to gnaw at her bored brain as she sat alone in her study with nothing to do because she had already finished everything that had to be worked on. She had never accomplished so much in one day, let alone two. She still lied and said that she would be very busy all day so that she wouldn't be bothered.

Finally after an hour she couldn't stand the complete silence that let every tiny noise sound amplified ten times, and she left her office for the first time in seven hours. She didn't know where she really wanted to go, and so she ended up just wandering around in no particular direction.

She ran into someone very particular though. "Is the ever diligent queen finally taking a break?" Viktor called out from the end of the hallway and Elsa looked up to find the face for the voice, being completely zoned out. She looked around him and found she was near the meeting room. There was no getting away and so she didn't even try. _"Face him head on, head on. It'll be over soon."_ She thought to herself.

"Would you like to walk with me? I was about to revisit the courtyard. It's so lovely outside. I've never felt summer down on the earth before."

"I guess it wouldn't hurt to pump some fresh air into me." She said rubbing at her temples to soothe away her headache from reading books for the past three hours straight, his loud voice making her realize it was there.

They fell in step and went to go for a walk through the courtyard nestled in the middle of the palace. He kept trying to walk very close to her side, but she would veer off a little, but he would come back again.

"Again, I must say you have a wonderful place. And, a lovely sister as well. You must feel very lucky to have someone so close to you to help you run your kingdom."

"Yes, it is nice. She always feels like I don't let her help enough though. I am the queen and so I take responsibility for everything that happens to Arendelle, and she thinks I should share it with her."

"So, you're saying you do most everything? Do you not think she is capable of your responsibilities?"

"Of course she is! She can handle anything, I'm sure. I just don't want her to. She has a family of her own now, finally. It took a few tries, and I want her to spend all the time she can with them. Her and I still have our whole lives to be together, we don't need to spend them working all the time, I can do that alone." She chided herself for saying so much about Anna's difficulties on having a baby. _"You idiot! Why did you say that?!"_ She was just so tired from reading.

"Why do you think you need to do everything yourself?" Viktor asked, duly noting how Robert wasn't very easy to obtain for his parents.

"I don't!"

"Forgive me, but what you are saying sounds a lot like that. What if you took ill, and could not perform your duties, whatsoever? Would Anna know how to do everything? Does she know your schedule?"

"A queen would never let a cold keep her from working." Elsa spoke with an assertive resonance.

"Then, my lady, you shall work yourself to death." He clasped his hands together, loudly, behind him, to strengthen how valid his argument was.

"Anna would do fine as a queen, but I'm not going to prepare for that happening anytime soon."

"Forgive me again, but that just sounds beyond foolish. If a cold won't stave you off the throne, then how will your sister ever learn how to sit in it?"

"She doesn't need to. I will always be here. She knows how to sit in a throne anyway. It's not that difficult for a princess, or anyone for that matter to learn."

"So, when you go off, to travel the land, does she sit in it?"

"Well, no. She always comes with, where ever I go."

"Then who stays here? To govern your people?"

"My chief of court. He's filled in for my parents before, and he knows the ins and out of Arendelle. It's his job to know."

"I'm just curious as to why you don't give your sister a chance."

"She's had chances before, and they are none of your business." Elsa's words started turning white hot, and Viktor felt them sear in his ears.

"Please, forgive once more. I am speaking much to freely."

"May I ask just why you are so interested in my sister's ability to uphold the crown if I were absent?" She felt very irritated and her voice conveyed it as well.

"I just want to see how defensive you are. You are very strong headed. I admire that. It's refreshing to see it in a woman." He flattered, looking straight ahead, seeing her reaction with his peripheral vision, and not being let down.

"Do you not have women in your mountains?" She asked with a tiny blush. He was testing her alright.

"That my dear queen is why I am still a bachelor. There are very few women there. It's not a thriving place at the moment."

"Then why have you left it?"

"To find someone to help me make it come back alive."

"I thought it was to see if the rumors of me were right."

"That as well."

"Why don't you just come out with it then." Elsa stopped in her tracks, her anger boiling inside her, threatening to steam out of her ears, her blush was completely gone now. "Why are you really here." She didn't ask it. She already knew why.

"Fine." He stopped as well and strode over to her behind him. He grabbed her hands delicately, and gazed into her eyes, her ice hard eyes, that he was determined to melt.

"I have come all this way to ask you to come with me, back to Adalinda, to rule with me. I have never met anyone with such passion! I know, I understand it will be heartbreaking to leave the only home you have ever known, but I urge you to consider my proposition. I have heard many reasons why you ran off when your extraordinary powers were revealed. Mostly you were afraid. Afraid for your people, your sister, your life. With me, in Adalinda, you will never have to be afraid again. There is very little you could harm there. My people will look to you in all your greatness and love you. Why, you will be revered as a goddess to them! They wouldn't dare disturb you to invoke a devastating response from your gift. You would never have to worry about hurting anyone ever again Elsa, as my queen. I will protect you from your fear. I will show you how great you can really become, completely free from fear."

Her heart stopped. It just stopped beating. Her pupils threatened to disappear from view completely, constricting into tiny specks. He talked of never fearing her powers again, of never having to worry about hurting anyone ever again. She already didn't, but words are so dangerous to the repaired heart.

Doubt cast it's ugly shadow over her face. She felt like she was breaking again, as his eyes seemed to peer into her soul, scavenging for her thoughts. She stood in silence, willing the ice beneath her skin, embedded in her bones, to stay put, to stop advancing to the surface, to not give her away.

"I know I am crossing every line you've probably ever drawn, but I can't help but believe that we were meant to be. The fates have drawn our hands together in the stars. I feel connected to you Elsa. We could rule worlds if given the chance, I know it." He smiled and kissed her knuckles of both her hands. His voice was so warm, so... enticing.

"I can't." Her lungs squeezed out every tiny ounce of air they held and her voice was nothing but air, no tone to it, but it was as heavy as a sunken ship. She closed her eyes to block his eager face from view, she closed them so tight. He wouldn't relent.

She racked her frozen mind for something else to say, not just anything, although that sounded like a good enough idea. She need something specific. "I can't leave Anna. She's all I have." She opened her eyes again, his expression unchanged. "She's all I want." She continued. Her voice weighed even more now as a confident tone latched on to it again. "In this whole wide world, all I need is in that girl. I can't leave her again. Never again."

"Does she feel the same?" He asked with an innocent pout, and it took all Elsa had to not slap him. "You don't think you're stifling her full potential?" Her hand flinched hard, but his grasp tightened with expectancy, and his eyes smiled as he felt his seed begin to grow inside her mind.

"Yes, she feels the same. She is my sister, and she loves me, no matter what, and I will never leave her again." His seed died right there before his very eyes. "You may leave now." She tore her hands away from his. "You have stayed your welcome." And with that she swiftly turned to storm back to the castle.

His plan failed. He stayed in place and his soul swirled inside him maddeningly, driving him insane. His plans never fail. He never fails. Viktor never fails. He didn't go after her. He just stood there dumbfounded.

Elsa's nose was smarting from pinpricks and the floodgates of her tear ducts came tumbling down as she entered her home again. Her whole body was shaking. She was shivering and she wasn't even cold. She was just panicking. She held her hands under her arms: one, to hold herself together, two, to not destroy everything in sight, to keep the rage, the hurt, the doubt inside her. Her body felt like it was exploding from the emotions clawing at her skin yearning to break through. Her bones felt brittle, and her breath was hard to come by as her chest felt like it was starting to cave in.

She couldn't see where she was going. She was bawling too hard, there were too many tears flying from her eyelids. She ran into everything, walls, pedestals, but not people, no, no one was around, and she thanked God for that. She didn't want anyone around her.

Her feet felt like they knew where they were going and urged her drowning mind to follow a path they hadn't gone down in over a decade. Her mind complied, willing to go anywhere at the moment just to keep it's body moving, fearing what could happen if it stopped. Her feet lead her down many turns and many hallways, until they stopped and she blindly ran into a set of doors.

She fell back onto the hard stone floor, from the force of hitting the massive doors so hard, and wiped her eyes as dry as she could to see what it was she had ran into; the double doors that led into her parents room. Her breath shuddered out and she slowly got her feet. She reached out to feel the old, smooth wood, as if to make sure it was real. They were.

Without wasting another moment she strained hard and pushed them opened, the hinges rusted over from extremely rare use for five years. A small dusty gust blew out, and she could smell her mother's perfume, as clear as if she had just sprayed it.

She walked in and dashed for the bed and jumped onto it, curling herself into a ball, forcing her body to shrink, to vanish. She imagined her mother stroking her hair, her loving touch calming, magical. Her touch could cure anything, from the flu to a scraped knee. She started to cry again as her heart ached from having to pretend to feel her.

She began to outright scream, and it sounded like she was fatally wounded. She howled over and over, sometimes into the pillows, but mostly into the air. Her breath was full of ice. Her hands, clenched and tangled in the thick comforter, froze the whole bed, and the ice spread onto the floor and onto the walls. She wailed even louder when it became too cold to smell her mother's perfume anymore in the frigid air.

Thankfully, it wasn't long until she passed out from exhaustion. Her tears were frozen half way down her face. Her fractured heart bled out into her weary body, and her throat, completely raw, began it's preparations to repair itself. If only hearts could repair themselves.

Not long afterwards, Anna found her unconscious body, balled up still on the bed, and she carried her out of the room. In her sister's arms she stirred slightly and Anna looked down at her. "Go back to sleep Elsa. Everything's okay." She purred, kissing her sister's frosty hair. Her lips burned from the cold as they melted the tiny bit of snow where they touched. Elsa was thoroughly covered in a dusting her own snow. She was ice cold, but Anna held her so close her muscles actually began to feel sore from the strain, but she never faltered on her way to her old room.

The guard stationed there in the hallway quickly moved out the way and went to open the door for Anna, thinking she must be struggling to have carried her sleeping sister for quite a way. Anna was just fine, she was more known as a klutz then for her strength.

"What's wrong with her?! What happened!" Peter practically shouted as Anna came in with them, but this time Elsa didn't stir. The guard shut the door behind her.

Peter shifted to the side so that Anna could lay Elsa down beside him on the bed. She didn't know where else to go. "I don't know. If I hadn't just left the room I don't think anyone would've found her." Anna pulled the blankets over her sister, and then sat down beside her on the edge and stroked her stiff, frozen hair, trying anything to make herself feel like she was helping her.

"Where was she?"

"Our parents old room." When Anna was really sad she'd go in there, and find her mother's perfume bottle and spray it into the air to smell it. It always made her feel better. "I heard someone screaming their lungs out and when I finally made it back over there she was passed out their bed, the whole room was frozen. I don't know what happened, but what ever it was it was terrible." She bent forward and lovingly kissed Elsa's forehead and let her lips linger there for a moment, wishing her love would instantly begin to melt all the ice coating her sister.

* * *

The door was thrown open violently, and the ten men playing cards on the floor all jumped out of their skin and they scrambled onto their feet."My liege? What happened?"

"We are leaving. Pack everything, and load the ship. We leave tonight. I won't stay another day here. _I've stayed my welcome_... What are you standing there for?! All of you! Get moving! Now!"

The men all started to run around and grab things and stuff them into suitcases and chests.

"Two weeks." Viktor mumbled to himself, not moving out of his men's way as they did his biding. "A week to get here, just to turn around, then another week to come back. All thanks to that fucking monkey."

"I will not be made a fool!" He exclaimed to his bustling men, not really caring if they stopped to acknowledge him or not. "If she won't get out of the way willingly then I will just have to move her myself." He fully said to himself, entirely consumed with strife.

"As soon as we get back I want my brothers and sisters awakened." Now the men stopped. They all stopped completely, mid heave and mid haul, their faces blank from fear. They weren't allowed to fear, but his siblings all sent a massive chill down there meaty spines. Slowly they began to move again, and then they worked even harder to distract their minds from thinking about what to expect when they arrived back home.

"I just have one last move though before I call check." He snickered under his breath. "I must destroy her most _precious_ pawn."


	12. Things we lost to the flames

He had waited for the whole castle to go silent before he dared open his door. He never made another peep to the inhabitants inside and no one disturbed him all day since he came back inside around three, after his proposal was harshly refused. He thought Elsa must have told her servants to stop waiting on him.

It was pitch black everywhere. No candles were lit, and he thought that odd. Candles and lanterns were lit all the other nights he stayed there. Something had happened and he wasn't being told about it.

He found himself feeling very comfortable though, sneaking and slithering about the grounds. His path felt familiar. Not just because he followed Anna to her room many times before, but because he felt like he had done this whole thing before as he clutched his dagger tighter in his fist.

At long last he reached the princess' door and he soundlessly twisted the doorknob. A tad bit of shock coursed through him at the surprise that it was unlocked. He had a plan to unlock it and everything. He shook his head with a smile at the princess' sweet, sweet innocence. He opened the door. He could see her clear as day in the black cloak of night. She was sprawled out over her husband, the mountain man. Her blankets strewn about them in a wild mess. They didn't hear him enter, they were deeply, sound asleep. They didn't see him raising his dagger as he floated over to them.

As he came near he thought at how he had first considered having one of his men kill for him, but then he figured he'd be the one blamed personally anyway, and decided it was better if he did it because then it was assured nothing would be messed up.

He stared her drool encrusted face down, he could even hear her strong heart beat echo in the stillness as he crept slowly towards the foot of the bed. He peered down into the crib there and saw a peaceful, fully awake, Robert. Robert was comfortable at the moment, too young to be afraid of the monster in the dark, so he remained quiet. Besides, being freshly turned three weeks old, his vision was still only good until about three feet in front of his face. Which is why he didn't really make out the blade that came and slid deep into his throat. He felt his warm blood spill over his smooth skin though, and then he saw the monster's face as it kissed him on his cooling forehead. Then little dying Robert saw with his last blood filled breath, a smile, warm and gentle, before his eyes closed and his soul departed, and he drifted away calmly, to meet his grandparents for the first time.

Viktor sheathed his dagger and then he took his index finger and dipped it in the baby's still warm blood and in the utter dark he wrote perfectly, and so beautifully one word. Not in dragon, and not in German, but in Norse, to make sure everyone knew, he had won. On Robert's soft forehead he wrote the word, "Sjakkmatt." Checkmate.

Sure Elsa wasn't a king in this game, but it was the only role she could fit in. When he arrived and only Anna, the mere princess, greeted him, he knew immediately who the real queen on this chess board was.

He left the room without another glance towards the peaceful couple, or the lifeless infant. He closed the door and then raced down the shadowy halls, and he didn't stop running until he reached the gates, already opened, never closed. When he was fully outside, and _only_ then, did his heart feel sentimental and forced his head to turn around and look back at the humble castle of wood and stone. He didn't care enough though to look very long and so again he ran off in the moonlight and he ran all the way to the docks at the fjord.

"There he is! Step lively ladies!" A man shouted as he finally saw Viktor appear thorough his telescope. "The bloody king is flying." He said mainly to himself.

"I think you mean he's raving mad. A bloody lunatic, more like it." Another man heard and commented and the man with the telescope turned around and collapsed the device down to a smaller size

"Aye, that's true too." He smacked the man across his back in appreciation of his humor, and then they set off to get in their positions. They had a grueling journey ahead. They knew they weren't going to take a week to get back to Germany. He'd make them row for all twenty four hours straight if it meant getting back home within three days, or even two.


	13. Below my feet

Elsa stayed with Peter the rest of the day. She mainly just slept but he did wake her when his dinner came. The servant who brought the tray went back to the kitchens and told everyone what he saw. He told them that Peter said she had some kind of panic attack and she wasn't doing well. The staff all went down to see for themselves, but the guard there told them he had implicit orders that no one was to go in, so the hoard all left with hanging heads. They're queen was suffering and they couldn't do anything for her. Their hearts bled wildly for her. They didn't know what happened, but they all had a feeling it was because of that king fellow that never left them alone.

Anna insisted that the castle just kind of take the night off. They all needed it after all the anxiety Viktor had brought to them with his ruthless quest to hound them into doing something with him, and so the lights weren't lit in the halls to encourage everyone to just stay in their rooms and get a full, well deserved, nights sleep.

* * *

"Good morning, sleeping beauty." Kristoff murmured into Anna's ear. He kissed her lovingly on the cheek and then on her nose, and then finally on her lips, and that made her stir, and her eyes slowly opened, and she kissed her husband back.

"Good morning." Her mind was foggy in the morning air, but her heart felt incredibly heavy. She rose up off her husband, but retracted a little when the bright sun earnestly greeted her weak eyes, the pain making her tear up a little, but she just felt something was terribly wrong and she pushed herself forward again. She squinted through the brilliant sunlight pouring in from the window and mentally cursed herself for not closing them last night. Then all of a sudden the sun wasn't a problem.

Her breath vanished, it never left and no more came in. It was nonexistent, just like someone else's. She didn't feel her body lunge for the crib, she was praying too hard. She prayed to the dead gods, she prayed to _the_ God, she prayed to every other faith's god. She couldn't hear anything but her prayers. Her heart wasn't beating right.

She frantically grasped at the side board of the crib and at the sight of it, at the sight of him, a very inhuman noise tore it's way from her belly and out her throat as she shrieked in absolute horror. Her second child, dead.

Kristoff yelped at her scream and immediately jumped out of the bed and ran over to the crib and when he saw what she was so distraught over, he fell. His knees buckled and he simply fell. He stared at the floor trying to process it. _It had to just be a dream. It has to just be a nightmare. Wake up._

He lifted his face and looked through the bars of the crib walls. He lifted his hand and clung onto one of the bars and just looked at his baby son. The world was dark save for that little baby in there. That cold baby. The blood that drained from his neck had spread and flowed down the sides of the little mattress, effectively painting everything around him dark red, and he looked like a pearl from the stark contrast of the darkness that left him hours ago.

Kristoff bowed his head, unable to look at him anymore. He wanted to cry but his tear ducts wouldn't activate from the emotional trigger, so he just sat there and tried to remember how to breathe as Anna squalled into the morning light. Looking back he doesn't remember her being so loud; his ears were muffled with grief.

The door was opened and in came rushing every servant in the fifty foot radius of her room, all asking what on earth was the matter, and their words choked in their lungs at the sight of Kristoff kneeling against the crib at the foot of the bed, and Anna holding a limp baby close to her chest. Her screams echoed in their very bones, penetrated their marrow, and tortured them.

In Anna's mind she didn't see herself holding her dead baby, she could only see the bloody word written on it's forehead, like a white hot iron, searing the inside of her eyelids. Sjakkmatt. Checkmate. The king had been captured.

In the midst the chaos, someone found the strength to carry himself away from it and once past the doorway he went into a full dead sprint, and he ran all the way to Peter's room. He cried the whole way there. It felt like no matter how far he ran away he could still hear her screaming. He passed by others who were rushing to the noise and he wanted to warn them not to, but he was focused on his destination too much to try and save them the pain. They'd feel it sooner or later anyway.

He arrived at the white, floral embellished door and he didn't even knock, not caring if those inside were decent or not; it didn't matter.

"Queen Elsa!" He shouted with his tear stained voice through the open door. "It's the prince. Prince Robert." He stared at the two bodies in the bed, one of them reacting much quicker than the other and Elsa flew out from under the covers, once again, not having changed into a night gown, and still wearing her dress from yesterday. She didn't say goodbye, and she didn't ask what was wrong. Her heart felt incredibly heavy too, and she felt like she already knew. The guard followed her as she ran faster than him, but he was already tired from making the long trek over there.

Elsa's heart pounded hard against her ribs, and her legs strained to push out farther, step lighter, out one leg, in the other, faster, faster, faster.

The room was full of kneeling servants. They were either lamenting hysterically, or they were fervently praying in silence. Elsa forced her way through them and came to Anna's side. She stared at the baby in her arms. He was white as snow and covered in blood. She wanted to take him away. She didn't want to be around him. This time was a million more times worse than when Anna miscarried her first child, because this baby was fully formed, fully beautiful and capable of life as she clutched him to her heaving chest.

"Anna..." Elsa spoke softly. Somehow she had strength inside to be strong as her world shattered like glass.

"Sjakkmatt! Sjakkmatt! Sjakkmatt! Sjakkmatt! Sjakkmatt!" She shrieked over and over.

"What?" Elsa asked, concerned and curious, and Anna turned Robert's limp head so Elsa could read it, and her blue eyes lit on fire.

"Sjakkmatt." Anna repeated once more in an angry whisper.

Elsa turned to face the crowd in the room. "Everyone out. Now." They all gave her blank stares, not believing she really just demanded they leave. "**_Now!_**" She shouted furiously at their incompetence, and then they rose from their knees and left, all of them looking back as they walked out.

"Anna, can I hold him?" Elsa turned back around and asked carefully, but Anna just kept sobbing, and even held him closer to her. "Anna, please." _"He's dead. You shouldn't be touching him, it's not safe."_ She begged in her mind. She wanted to take him away. She couldn't stand the sight of her sister in so much pain. Not again.

Kristoff finally rose up and dragged his body over onto the bed and sat next to Anna. He was thinking the same thing as Elsa. He draped an arm around Anna's quivering shoulders and she began to calm down a little by his touch.

Elsa, very slowly, went to grab Robert, and Anna let her take him away because she was so distracted by herself, losing herself, and her body began to feel numb.

When Elsa fully had little Robert in her arms, and Anna turned to sob into Kristoff's chest. Kristoff looked towards his son in Elsa's arms and as a tear finally strolled down his face he breathlessly said goodbye to him, and Elsa turned away and hurried out of the room.

Elsa felt used to Death. To her, He was kid that knew everything and always had to prove it. After a few years you accept that they are annoying as hell and there's nothing you can do about it. You never become friends, but you never become enemies either. You don't mistreat Him because you know what he'll do to you and you'll know you deserved it. She couldn't think for the life of her what they had done to deserve this. Was being born into destiny such a terrible sin to Death?

She didn't look down at the blood stained infant like everyone else did that she passed. She didn't really know where she was trying to go. She didn't know what to do with the little body. Bystanders asked what the screaming was all about and then the blood ran away from their faces when they saw, but Elsa just kept walking.

She ended up walking to Georg's office, her chief of court, and she knocked on the door.

"Come in!" He called out from his desk, not looking up from a recent crime report that was sent to him.

His door opened and he swiftly glanced over to it and saw Elsa there, holding a baby, but he simply looked back down at his papers, completely engrossed in them.

"Yes, your majesty. I will be right with you. I'm almost finished."

Elsa strode over to him, her footfalls silent against the carpet. She came to his desk, and still he did not look up at her. She calmly placed the dead body on his desk, on top of his important papers. He jumped up and screamed with horror, and then he looked up at her. Her face was blank and smooth, not sad and not angry. She was holding everything back behind her scolding eyes.

"This isn't how you play chess." Elsa stated coolly, her glare hardening into steel. Georg didn't have a clue what to say to that. He looked back down at the baby and then it made sense. The word checkmate stood out above all else, and his heart dropped to his stomach.

"No, this is how to start a war." He spoke sharply, looking back up to the queen and he saw her rage slowly break it's way through her face.

"Precisely." She concurred with an icy bite in her hollowed voice. "I want king Viktor's head, and I want it hung on my wall."


	14. A maker of my time

Elsa left Georg's office after an hour of intense shouting. They were both in agreement on everything, they were just excited. She had the scribe in the room take away the baby. He almost vomited from just the thought of touching the dead body, but he did as he was commanded, and left to take it someplace more proper than an office. When she left she was headed towards Anna's room when a guard was coming her way, Gregory, from before.

"Your majesty, after a search for Viktor, it has been found that his ship is missing. He's left already. No one saw him leave. I don't know how that's possible, but he's left without a trace."

Well, almost without a trace. "Coward. Is Anna still in her room? How is she?"

"It's amazing, she's completely calm! She's waiting for you in the dining hall. Prince Kristoff isn't fairing as fair as she, but he's with her nonetheless."

"She's in shock Gregory. I can promise you she is no where near calm." She began to jog in panic at his words, and he followed her. Their legs were still sore from running earlier, but Elsa needed to get to her sister, fast.

She arrived at the opened doors of the dining hall with two guards at either side, still fulfilling their duty despite the terrible news, and Elsa was grateful for that, for how strong her people were.

"Anna! I'm here!" Elsa cried out and Anna looked back behind her and an extremely misplaced grin spread across her face as she ran over to her sister and crushed her with a walloping hug. Her whole body felt stiff and cold. The air about her felt off, just off. She wasn't okay in the slightest. She seemed fake.

"Oh Elsa." Her voice even felt fake as it took on a cheerful tone.

"A-are you alright?" Elsa asked, not really knowing what to say.

"No, but I'm going to get there." Elsa looked around and found Kristoff hunched over the table, silently sobbing into his arms. Was that why Anna was feigning strength? She didn't want her husband to be so sad so she was pretending she was okay so he wouldn't have to worry about her? "We're all going to get there." Then Anna decided this next part would be better whispered, "Where's Robert?"

All the warmth evaporated from Elsa's body. "I had him sent away to be prepared for burial." She whispered, answering.

"That's okay. Thank you." Anna whispered back and then kissed her cheek and lifted away. Her face didn't look like she was okay with it.

"Where have you been?" She asked gleefully, but there was a little crack in her voice. Her façade was crumbling, and she felt it, all three of them did.

"Speaking with Georg." Elsa tried to say as confident as she could.

"What about?" Anna asked as if she were oblivious. Her eyes started watering. She couldn't take much more, and she just had a feeling she knew what her sister was about to say. She knew it would be the final straw that would break her back.

"I've declared war against Adalinda, and sentenced Viktor to death."

One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Four seconds.

"He has already left without notice, so I will have word sent to him of his punishment."

One second. Two seconds. Three sec-

"Don't you think that's a little fast? To outright invoke war?"

"No. He outright proposed to me yesterday. Yes, that's what happened, that's why I ran to mother and father's room. Peter warned me that was his main intentions, and I dashed them all to hell. This was all Viktor's plan and I will make him pay for it dearly."

"Wait, he actually proposed to you? After barely talking with you... For three days being here, and he just... Proposed?" Anna questioned mainly to herself, with an incredulous expression on her face.

"I'd take that as an insult if he wasn't such a prick." Elsa knew Anna was asking more rhetorically than literally, but she felt she needed to respond.

"I didn't mean it like that." Anna explained, rubbing at her arms in embarrassment.

"I know. That's why I said I'm not taking offense." Elsa gave her a tiny smile to cheer her up. "Georg also agreed that I should lead my armies into battle. That I shouldn't even give him a chance."

"You're not going to lead them yourself though right? You can't do that." Anna pleaded, her voice rockier than a river bed. Elsa felt that unmistakable creep of her ice along the walls of her veins at the sound of terror in her sister's voice.

"I am going to war. I will face him in person, myself. I don't care if I do have a thousand armies or even just one soldier behind me. I'm am going to kill that son of a bitch with my own hands, if that's what it takes!" Elsa fled as she felt the ice begin to frost her skin. It didn't feel cold, but it felt uncomfortable, like an old, ratty, scratchy blanket.

"Elsa, stop!" Anna shrieked as her heart shattered in her chest, the broken pieces still beating even, as her sister ran away from her like she did five years ago. Elsa felt the fear shoot through her from Anna's voice and she stopped, but she didn't dare turn around. She knew what would happen. "Can't you see how much we need you? _Here?_ How_ I_ need you?" Anna wailed in selfish agony; tears welled up in both their eyes.

"I know." Was all Elsa could mutter to squeeze through her tightening chest, threatening to cave in on itself if she didn't get out of there soon.

Anna stormed over to Elsa in a wild rage, and spun her around and brought her big sister close, wailing into her ear, "Stop saying I! You're not alone. I will be here beside you, until the **very** end. _Damn you_." Elsa's will broke and she sobbed into Anna's shoulder with reckless abandon. Her ice receding with her sister's embrace.

"I'm so tired of hearing you always saying I." Anna continued, much more calmly, but still crestfallen all the same. She began to stroke her hand through Elsa's hair, then she rubbed her sister's back, and slowly, but surely, Elsa's breath turned back into long, gentle, albeit mucus filled, pulls instead of heaping gasps.

"I love you Anna, but I can't risk both of us getting hurt." Elsa finally said, her face still buried in her little sister's shoulder.

"I don't won't you to risk getting yourself hurt." Anna consoled, and Elsa lifted her head and with a feigned smiled she genuinely said,

"I'm the Ice Queen. I wasn't born to be hurt."

Anna smirked despite herself, and she pulled Elsa to her once more. "If you won't let me fight with you, then I'll stay here and fight for you. Just promise me one thing."

"Anything, Anna. Anything." Elsa squeezed tighter, inhaling the intoxicating aroma of Anna's pure, unadulterated, sweetness. She never wanted to forget it, and she knew where she was going she probably would anyway.

Anna's voice struggled against the second rising lump in her throat and her voice cracked and came out as a desperate whisper. "Promise me you'll come back." She drew back the snot dripping before continuing, "Swear to me Elsa. In the name of God almighty, swear that you will come back, alive."

Elsa only lifted her head away and looked into her sister's swimming eyes, and found herself drowning in them. "I swear on my undug grave that I will return, alive." Elsa knew it was an empty promise. It was much more than a simple pie crust promise, because she knew once she stepped foot in those mountains her life was no longer in her control, but in Viktor's, greedy, millennium blood stained hands.

Anna heard the words from her sister's mouth and stored them deep in her heart where they could echo everyday while she was gone. They were so much more than a promise to her, they were the truth. She had all the faith in the world in her sister. In fact...

"Ik heb vertrouwen in je, mijn zus." ("I have faith in you, my sister.") Anna beamed a million suns from her beautiful, freckled face, and Elsa almost felt like crying again. Her little sister spoke the words with such ease, as if she'd been practicing for years for some special occasion to use them.

Ever since Elsa first told Anna she had faith her in Dutch five years ago, Anna threw herself into the language much more eagerly, in hopes that one day she would make her sister proud of her, make her love her again, like she did once, before she had to be kept away, before she knew that Elsa still loved her very much.

"You will make a great queen while I'm away." Elsa stated with a broad smile, and then she looked over to see a hunched over Kristoff, sitting at the dining table still, his face buried in one hand, the other supporting it to keep it up. Tears were very visible as they streamed down his face.

"And you Kristoff." Elsa looked to her sister for permission to go over to him and Anna agreed with a loving squeeze of her shoulders, then released her, turning around to watch her sister go over to him.

Kristoff looked up, not bothering to wipe his face, his eyes red and puffy. Elsa pulled out the chair beside him and sat down, his eyes never leaving hers, and she grabbed his free hand and held it in hers.

"You, will make a great king. Forget what I have said in the past. It's there for a reason. You do know how to run a thriving kingdom. Oh, please don't cry, it's bad enough us girls are, we don't need our rock to either."

In all his grief and in all his pain he lunged forward and wrapped his arms around the woman before him, and clung onto her as if she was fading away like smoke. Even Anna found herself jumping at the shock of Kristoff hugging Elsa. He just wasn't that much of a physical affection kind of person; only when he was swept off his feet by raw emotion, like right now.

"Thank you Elsa." He wanted to say so much more, but his mouth wouldn't do it. His heart was gushing with sentiment, but his tongue just wouldn't articulate it. Elsa understood though, she understood as if she could hear his heart screaming out how much she meant to him.

"You know I love you as well Kristoff. You're the best brother _anyone_ could _ever_ ask for."

"And you're the best sister I never knew I needed." Finally, a little one liner bypassed his mind and got out and Elsa grinned at the tender regard. "And, I love you too." And with that, he finished, and he let go of her and she lifted away, only to cup his cheek and stroke at his wet, rough skin, then she bent forward to kiss his other, equally wet, equally rough cheek.

"You just take care of my sister Kristoff." She whispered in his ear, and then when she lifted away to look him in the eyes she continued, "And take care of yourself."

"I'm not the one going after a dragon man." He joked without a smile, but you could hear the humor in his voice. No one knew how they were being so lighthearted all of the sudden. It felt like hope was being physically injected into their veins and fortifying their minds. They felt like they could win.

Elsa winked at him and then she stood up and walked back over to Anna. "Georg is one hundred percent behind me, and he is having the royal guard put on notice that we leave for Adalinda in two days time."

"So soon?!" Anna yelled. That wasn't like her sister to just jump into things. "Do you even know where these mountains really are? Do our men know how to climb them? What if he sees you coming, and attacks, or what if he has his armies are waiting down at the bottom for you?"

Elsa wasn't expecting that. Her sister was the one being level headed and realistic, and her son was just killed, mercilessly, but she was the one questioning Elsa's very rash decisions. Why was she being so rash in the first place? It wasn't her son, her child, her life that she created.

"We leave in two days." Elsa repeated resolutely. Her mind was even astonished at the discord she created inside herself. She didn't want to think of plans, she just wanted to kill the bastard.

"Elsa, don't just run in there without knowing where the doors are." Anna said, and she felt something ignite in her, the hidden philosophies that were instilled deep within her were blossoming from her lips and she felt wise without ever have been tested. Elsa heard it too. She heard her father's voice come out of her little sister's mouth. He said something to that effect before, but he specifically told it to Anna; it was great advice for her daring and adventurous spirit.

"I know you're right Anna, but I can't wait. The longer I don't do anything, the longer _he_ has to do something first."

"Elsa, he most likely won't even be home in two days. Are you going to fight him on the seas?"

Elsa stared at her in disbelief. Was she really that blind with rage to not even think straight enough to consider that?

"You're right. I'm getting too ahead of myself."

"That's completely understandable."

"I'm going to go-"

"No, what did I just say!" Anna snapped and Elsa stepped back from the verbal lashing in fear. "What ever you're going to do I'm coming with you. Kristoff, you're coming too. I don't want you to be alone either." Her voice was harsh and sharp, her emotions were cycling up and down and she couldn't suppress them anymore like she thought she could. Ten minutes, and then for however long they'd been talking, of completely shutting yourself down? Not letting herself grief the death of your son after discovering him an hour ago? Yeah, I don't know why she thought she could hold it in at all, whatsoever, either.

Anna went over and snatched Kristoff's wrist and pulled him out of his chair. "Where are we going?"

"Back to Georg's office." Anna, dragging Kristoff behind her, was already rushing past her by the time she pronounced the G of his name, and Elsa again stared at her with disbelief. But, she shook her head to clear all the muddled thoughts inside and went after them, wondering what she was even going to say.

* * *

It was decided that a ship would be set sailed to follow Viktor's. But then Kristoff managed to squeeze in a fantastic idea: that Elsa send a snow bird or something to that effect to track Viktor's ship. He remembered that the snow reindeer she made all those years ago never tired, and they moved wickedly fast. Thus, the ship was undecided upon and the bird plan was decided instead. A bird _is_ much less conspicuous than a whole ship.

The scribe had already returned and Elsa dictated her message of revenge for him to write down and then she created a beautiful dove of snow and put her message, stamped and rolled up. in it's claws and set it free out the window.

"Are you going to want the gates closed?" Georg hesitantly inquired, the question gnawing on his brain the whole time they were discussing. He only saw Elsa's mother when he looked to her at right now; sturdy and resilient.

"Why?" Anna asked, annoyed sounding at the mere thought of such a horrid act.

"Anna, just calm down." Elsa said, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "We are going to leave them open. Nothing is going to keep Arendelle safe, not even shutting us out, or shutting them in. What needs to happen now is to tell everyone outside what has happened. I'm sure there are rumors already being spread, so I need to announce this as soon as possible."

"I can set that up right now, you can go prepare yourself and I'll have you sent for when we're all ready."

"Okay then." Elsa slipped her hand into her sister's beside her, turning her face to look at her and asked, "Where do you want to go?"

"Peter's room." Anna had them step over to Kristoff and she grabbed his hand and he looked at her and when she smiled a sad smile at him his eyes glimmered with a little hope, that they'd all be okay.

"It'll be a few hours." Georg stated, feeling a little left out, but not wanting to be put in either.

"That'll be just fine." Elsa replied, and he went over to the door to let them out, bowing slightly to show his respect and condolences. After they all walked out and left to go to Elsa's old room he looked up and wistfully watched the trio walk away. Then he quickly turned away from them and wiped at his eyes before going to sit down and start planning the evening for his queen.

* * *

"Elsa! Anna!" Peter happily exclaimed with a worried voice, but he looked at the blonde man apologetically.

"Kristoff." He provided with a small smile letting Peter he didn't need to feel bad for not remembering his name. Kristoff felt worse, let me assure you, because he remembered Peter's at a very bad time.

Elsa came over and hugged him tight, and Anna invited herself to sit near the foot of the bed, the opposite side of them to give them space, and Anna gestured for Kristoff to pull the chair from the abandoned vanity up to the side of the bed to sit on.

"Well! What happened?!" Peter asked, weakly pushing Elsa away so he could see her face. She felt him pushing and pulled away completely and sat down before him and clasped his hands in hers, but she didn't dare look him in the eye.

"Viktor's done something that no one saw coming..." Elsa said and all the color that had finally returned to Peter's skin vanished. "He... He k-... He killed Robert... Last night... While we were all asleep."

"No..."

"He's already left too. He must have left right after he... You know."

Peter looked over to Anna; she was crying again, she didn't even try to hide it, but she was trying her hardest to be quiet. Kristoff was kissing her hands lovingly, murmuring reassurances and I love yous.

"I'm declaring war on him." The world stopped for a long moment. Peter snapped his eyes back to Elsa.

"No! You can't do that! You don't understand. He'll... Oh no..." He started out heatedly, but the his voice trailed away into a faint whisper and his eyes started to go wide.

"He'll what?" Elsa pursued cautiously.

"His brothers... He's going to wake them up. He's going to take over the world, without you. You made the decision for him." His eyes grew wider and darker with dread.

"What are you talking about?"

"I told you why he was here! To make you his wife, and you said no. He wanted to have you beside him, so you'd be easier to control. He doesn't want you in his way. He's going to wake his brothers. The world is going to end again..."

"If you would've told me that a few days ago, I'd think you weren't healing properly." Elsa spoke rightfully afraid.

"We haven't really talked since that night... I didn't want to give you more nightmares than what you were having."

"Anything you can tell us, Peter. Anything and everything! We _need_ to know everything."

"I've seen them. They're all inside the mountains. It looked like millions of them, but I'm not sure."

"Of what?" Anna asked with a wobbly voice.

"He literally calls them his brothers..." A tone of disgust rang in his awed voice.

"Who?" Elsa pushed, tired of the build up.

Peter finally looked up at her; his grasp on her hands went slack. "The dragons."


	15. Dies Irae

*Knock knock* "Queen Elsa? We're ready for you now." Georg called from outside the door. The guard was excused since Peter's life no longer seemed threatened.

"Shit!" Elsa hissed quietly. "I never thought about what I'm going to say."

"Just tell them the truth." Anna suggested with a small smile and a shrug of her shoulders. "Well, not all of it."

"What, not about the dragons?" Peter started

"They'll probably end up seeing them when Viktor comes to attack." And, Kristoff finished.

"We're not going to let that happen. Arendelle is not going to get burnt down." Elsa stated firmly, trying to make herself believe it.

"Your majesty?" Georg called out again.

"I'm coming!" She yelled back, and then she looked over at Anna who was drying her face with her hands. "We're coming?"

"I'm not so sure I want to go with you this time." Anna said before snorting back her snot.

"I don't really blame you." Elsa squeezed Peter's hands once more, and gave him a sad look because she didn't want to leave him. Finally there was a good memory in this room. Everyone she truly cared about was under the same roof, of that old, retched room of hers. She stood up anyways, and began to go towards the door.

"I'll still come with you though!" Anna got up and wiped her hands on her dress to dry away the tears and she went and hugged her sister from behind. "I'll stand right beside you. Forever."

"Good." Elsa smirked and simply kept going towards the door, with Anna still holding onto her from behind, and Anna beamed at their playfulness, glad that there was finally something she could genuinely smile about.

Elsa opened the door and Georg was standing a little ways away, with his hands behind his back, his posture strict, as he was zoning himself in to be completely calm.

"Well, wait for me!" Kristoff hollered, racing for the door, but then he felt two lonely eyes boring holes into his back, and he turned around to face them. "Wouldn't you like to go too?" He asked Peter, who had sunk back into the headboard, understanding Elsa's look all too much. Peter nodded slightly before actually just saying yes. "Would you like some help, or can you get up on your own?"

"I'm not going to go."

"But, you just said that you wanted to..."

"Yeah... I know." He took his eyes away from his and let them rest against the wall. "Go, before they leave you behind." He lightly demanded with a wave of his hand.

Kristoff moved in Peter's peripherals, but he never dreamed of what Kristoff was going to do next. Kristoff gingerly scooped him up out from under the covers and off the bed into his arms; Peter, a complete stranger.

"What are you doing?!" He shouted hoarsely.

"You must be tired of just sitting there all day." Kristoff said strolling out of the room easily. Peter was much more light than he looked, and that wasn't a good thing for Peter's sake.

"I don't want to hear Elsa damn herself! Put me back!" Kristoff could see Anna turn her head back to see what all the shouting about behind her.

"Elsa knows what she's doing. We need to trust her." Kristoff argued.

"Do you really think she knows she's going to get herself _killed_? I can personally guarantee that." Kristoff looked down at Peter's pasty face, all his horror displayed brightly on it. "If you think I look bad, just wait until we see what he does to her."

"I don't want to believe that." Kristoff looked away, staring straight forward at the back of Elsa's head, since Anna had moved to her side, he could see her long, flowing, platinum blonde hair, completely down, not even a hairband in it.

"You can believe what ever the hell you want, but that doesn't make the truth of the matter disappear. If Elsa goes to fight him herself, she _will_ die."

"How do know that for sure?" He asked, his voice hallow, his mind was so distracted by Elsa's bouncing hair. It was something to keep a fresh image of her in his mind, and not the deathly one Peter was trying to attack him with.

"I was Viktor's favorite play toy. To him I literally was a toy, his _absolute_ favorite. If I was broken he'd fix me in a heartbeat, but just to break me again. He won't do that with her. Once he breaks her, that's it. He'll toss her down the mountain like trash. Like all the men he's thrown over before. All the ones that didn't please him sufficiently enough."

Kristoff's face starting to turn a horrid shade of green, and he could feel his stomach being churning at the horrible images of dead men, probably mutilated, and disfigured, being kicked off a high cliff like they were nothing. When he imagined Elsa, mutilated, and probably disfigured, a little bit of the bile that was swirling inside him shot up and burned his throat with it's acidic sting.

"Yeah, it's not pleasant to think about. Just think of what I felt when I had to actually watch."

"I don't want to."

"Do you regret making me come now?"

Kristoff looked at him one more time, and his eyes were hard with determination to keep whatever that was in his stomach there. "No." He stated firmly then looked back to Elsa. He was getting pretty close to them now.

"All those who could come at such notice have gathered in the square. You will give your speech on the balcony above, to both commoner and commander alike. I have something prepared for you, if you'd like to read it over to familiarize it with yourself." Georg said, and handed her a couple pieces of parchment, encrestened with her family's coat of arms.

"Thank you very much Georg." Elsa said with a very please tone ans she took the papers like they were precious gold.

"I simply recall you saying you had nothing prepared, and I took the liberty of writing something as soon as you left my office, just in case."

Elsa was too busy reading the speech to respond. Her brow furrowed in confusion and Anna saw that, and so she leaned over to read it as well, and her brow furrowed to. They understood the diction, it was just that the whole thing felt stiff; heartless. Elsa was too enraged at Viktor to tell her people what Georg wanted her to say.

"This is very nice Georg, but it's just not... Meaningful enough... At least to me."

"Oh?" He held out his hand to take the papers back and Elsa handed them to him and he re-read what he had jotted down hurriedly, thinking that he was a speech writing genius, but upon further inspection he found Elsa's accusation right on point. "Oh, I see. It really isn't is it?"

"At least you took the time to come up with something." The large double doors were close at hand. They were close enough to make out the floral engravings.

Georg hurried ahead of them to reach them first, but then waited for them all to get right behind him. He stuffed the parers inside his jacket and then he gripped the doorknobs so tight the skin around his knuckles turned white. He wasn't sure what he was so afraid of.

The right door opened slightly by someone on the other side, despite his tight grasp, and the little group behind him could barely hear them whisper, "Is she here?"

"Yes. Right behind me."

"We're all ready out here." Then the door closed again, and Georg turned his head around, letting his eyes fall onto everyone faces: Anna's, Elsa's, Kristoff's, and an unexpected Peter's, as Kristoff set him down on his feet but kept his arm around his shoulders, and Peter wrapped his arm behind Kristoff's trunk.

"Are you ready Elsa?" Georg asked quietly in order to create a calm space for her before she had to tear herself apart in front of everyone.

She shuddered out a shaky breath and squeezed her sister's hand so tight, but Anna didn't mind at all, she was already squeezing back, letting her know that she was right there and she wasn't going to leave her.

"Yes. I'm as ready as I'll ever be."

With that Georg turned his head back around and opened the doors and led them onto the grand balcony then he receded into the shadows at the left to give the small entourage all the attention, but Kristoff and Peter followed him. They knew they didn't belong next to a queen as she addressed the worst news anyone could face, certain doom.

The crowd of people below was enormous. Georg had made it sound like maybe a hundred people could make time to attend, but there had to be thousands there. Maybe people saw everyone else going in that direction and put down there tools to appease their curiosity. The pavilion was swarming with the applause and cheering of the kingdom's population, and Elsa's hands went ice hard at once as fear gripped her from her unpreparedness.

"I'm right here. You're going to be okay." Anna spoke softly into the frosting air around them, and Elsa gulped despite herself and took in one last, big breath to steady her, and she lifted her other hand to silence the booming voices.

"My good, faithful people of Arendelle. Today is not a day of celebration I am terribly afraid to say. A ruthless traitor has snuck himself in and in the dead of night, he killed my newest heir. King Viktor of Adalinda has killed Prince Robert. I will not stand for this treason, and I hope we are all in agreement together that none of you will stand for it either."

Anna's hand felt like it was on fire. Elsa's ice was frightfully cold, but she couldn't find it in her to pull away and so she kept looking forward, into the massive crowd.

Elsa noticed Anna's grip go slack though, and she knew she must be hurting her and it meant more than anything that she still wouldn;t let go of her, so she did it for her. She merely let go of Anna's hand and looped her arm through her sister's and pulled her close to her side so she could feel her warmth radiate through her and melt away all her fear.

"I am declaring war against Adalinda. I am declaring war against it's people and it's king, and I will not hinder, and I will not cease, until their king is dead. The gates will not close, but our borders will. Now is the time to call and depend on your deep faith and your everlasting strength, for rough times are upon us. We will come out alive though. We will come out roaring from the flames that will be used to purge us, and we will show that we may not be big, but we are mighty, nonetheless. Now is the time to prove ourselves to the tyrant Injustice, and show him how shriveled his heart is, show him how much of a coward he is!" The mass of citizens grew restless with excitement, but the smile that spread across Elsa's lips wilted and on she continued when her people's renewed cheers died down to a dull din of excited words.

"My parents died never having to see how strong you are, and I wish I could live not having to know either, but King Viktor has given me no choice. So I won't give him one either! He will die and Prince Robert will be avenged, and our home will be salvaged from this fateful blow." Elsa looked over to Anna who had tears streaming down her face, but her face expressed pride; but pride in what? Elsa wasn't sure. She placed her hand over Anna's arm, it was warm again, and then looked back to her subjects and in a strong voice, much like she heard her father's to sound like, and she began to declare, "Long live Prince Robert. May he rest in peace."

Then, in one giant, deep, unified voice, the people repeated, "Long live Prince Robert. May he rest in peace."

Elsa could feel Anna's spirit rupture as a fresh surge of tears glistened in her eyes and Elsa quickly led them both away, back towards the doors, and Anna shamelessly buried her head into Elsa neck and Elsa wrapped both her arms around her little sister. Not a single feeling of anger or embarrassment coursed through her frenzied mind.

"Thank you." Anna whimpered almost inaudibly as they exited the balcony, Kristoff, Peter, and Georg following close beside them. The guards that were stationed in front of the doors swiftly shut them, closing out the deafening chanting of Arendelle commemorating Prince Robert's short life as they still repeated the simple phrase, "Long live Prince Robert. May he rest in peace."


	16. O' sister

**My own story is depressing me. :( So I threw in some sister fluff because I can. :)**

* * *

"That was most excellent my lady! Brilliant indeed! Simply moving, and tragically beautiful." Georg praised, and if it were under any other circumstance Elsa would've blushed, but she was concerned about Anna into her shoulder, and she was concerned about Peter straining to push his broken body forward.

"Thank you." Her words rang with finality and smacked his face like a hand and he swallowed the rest of his praises down.

"What now then?" He asked bashfully.

Elsa looked all around for a clock to find what time it even was as the day felt like it was racing past them like a tempest. There was one coming up to the left and it read half past noon.

"I'm not sure. I don't feel hungry enough to eat anything still."

"I'm not going back to my room. I don't ever want to go back in there again." Anna said anxiously, and Elsa squeezed her tighter.

"We can go back to my room." Peter quietly suggested, all the walking he'd barely done already taking the wind out of him.

"Oh Peter!" Elsa turned her head to look over at him struggling to not hinder Kristoff, but Kristoff was just fine with whatever speed Peter needed to go. "Georg, we're all going to just take Peter back and spend time in his room together. You may leave to go back to your work."

"Yes, your majesty." He bowed, and then walked away, never looking back.

"How do you feel?" Elsa asked looking back over to Peter.

"It's kind of nice to move around again." He managed to squeeze out.

"Are you going to be able to make it back on your feet?" Kristoff asked, preparing himself to pick Peter up again if needed.

"I want to be able to... But, I don't think so." Peter answered breathless, and Kristoff gingerly swept him off his aching feet and carried him once more.

"Don't worry. You'll get there soon enough. We'll get you up and walking more now." Kristoff said diligently, stepping closer to Anna as Elsa held her against her still.

"We're all going to get there soon enough." Elsa crooned after kissing the top of Anna's head.

"We're all just kids though." Anna muttered, lifting her face back up to see where they were going.

"Yeah, twenty-something year old kids, all going to war with a mad twenty-something year old." Kristoff joked, but they all, even him, knew it wasn't really a joke, but just a light way to put out there the harsh truth that they were too young to have to stain their hands already.

They finally got back to Peter's room and once inside Kristoff laid Peter back on the bed, while Elsa let go of Anna and immediately went to the giant window. She climbed onto the padded seat below it and just stared out onto the courtyard below, making herself feel alone in deep thought. It scared her at how easy she was able to sit there at the window that kept her trapped inside while her little sister was out playing. Speaking of which...

Anna took over and tucked Peter back in comfortably, and Kristoff took back his seat on the vanity chair next to the side of the bed. When Anna thought Peter was sufficiently pampered enough she placed a sweet kiss on his cheek and then lifted away to go sit at the foot of the bed, but she found herself looking at her sister, all alone at her old window.

"Elsa? Are you okay?" Anna inquired, without hesitation.

"I'm twenty-five... Mother was forty-one and father was forty-two before they died." Elsa spoke with a hallow, empty voice.

"And?..." Anna pursued, not able to see where Elsa was going with her train of consciousness.

"I don't feel old enough to handle this. I want to take back what I said, everything.I don't want to go to war anymore. I'm afraid! I want to be little again, and I want mother here to tell me everything is going to be okay because father is going to take care of everything. I'm just so scared." Elsa was holding herself and she began to rock back and forth to comfort herself from her anxiety from having to face that she was all alone. Her parents weren't going to help her.

Anna all but ran over to her and grabbed at her shoulders to twist her around, away from the window, and she lifted her face with a gentle hand to make Elsa look at her, but of course Elsa clamped her eyes closed tight, shutting out the visible world.

"Elsa, look at me. Please. Just look at me." Elsa wouldn't open her eyes. "Elsa, it's going to be okay."

"No, no it's not. Don't lie."

"I'm not lying!"

Now she opened her eyes, with rage. "How do you know?!"

"I just do. Look, what happened to mom and dad was an accident that they couldn't control. We can control this, this war, this fight. We can win. We **_will_** win. You and me. Together. When this is all over and behind us we can be children again, okay?"

"No we can't. I am the queen and you are a princess. We have a kingdom to rule. There is no room for children where we have to go."

"Says who?"

"All of history." Elsa cast her eyes to the floor, the struggle inside her falling out as she felt her argument had lost its momentum.

"Well, we're going to write some history aren't we? We're already writing it. We've been writing it for years! You are a queen without a king. You don't need one, you are powerful all by yourself, and not just because of your powers, but because of your strong will to protect all those you love. You are not afraid to do whatever it takes to keep us all safe. Like this war! Why are you so afraid all of the sudden?"

"Because, I've always managed to avoid the option when it came to everyone else who was threatening to unbalance the peace within Arendelle. You know I've never wanted to use my powers to hurt anyone, and now there is this rift inside me. I'm afraid it will consume me. That, God willing, when I return the power will go to my head and I won't be Elsa, myself anymore. I'm terrified that I'll become a monster, that history will paint over and magnify all I do and make it all sound worse than it actually was."

"I won't let that happen Elsa. Kristoff and Peter won't let that happen. Hell! Arendelle won't let that happen."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I choose to believe in the possibility of happy endings." Anna beamed at Elsa brightly, trying to over power the shadowy doubts on her sister's face.

"Elsa, you have every right to worry about that, but you gotta understand that we have every right to believe you'll come back the same." Kristoff interjected, and the sisters looked over at him behind them. "The worse thing that could happen is that you come back stronger, and that's not a bad thing. I'd personally be worried if you didn't come back different."

"Kristoff's right Elsa. You can worry, but please don't worry too much alright? Let us do some of your worrying for you, to keep it off your heart." Elsa bore her eyes into Anna's and she found all her father's fondness in them.

"Okay." Elsa said with a shaky breath, and it almost sounded unsure.

"Okay?" Anna asked to see if Elsa really meant it.

"Okay." Elsa confirmed, much more strong this time, and she even went so far as to smile a little, and Anna pulled her close and hugged her, then she pulled her up and while still hugging her she made them walk over to the bed and sit down together at the foot of it.

"I think we should all stay together in here for the rest of the day. Screw responsibility. We're to sad." Anna declared, and even though no one utter an agreement or even nodded their heads slightly, they were all in agreement.

It was about half an hour when someone came to check on them and they asked if they were hungry. They felt finally did feel a tad famished by then, but they were insistent on not leaving the room and so they all had a simple sandwich and soup lunch in their room together. Later the same man came and collected their trays and asked if they needed anything else and Anna ordered that a cot be brought in for her and Kristoff to sleep on, and after an hour a whole bed was brought in for them. The servants that were tasked with finding and bringing in a cot felt that a cot wasn't good enough for two grieving parents.

Time passed by as they recounted every single happy memory that they could find within themselves and soon enough dinner time came upon them and ate some more of the soup that was left over. The beds were pushed together to make one giant sized bed and they all sat together, side by side, finding anything to say that would make them all laugh. They didn't speak of death or torture, but of snowball fights, and crazy baker antics, and of Sven's carrot obsession.

Not long afterwards Night threw it's start studded shawl over the sky, and they all felt heavy from the long day that ran them ragged. In the end Anna and Elsa were lying in each other's arms, their foreheads pressed together. Peter lay to the right behind Elsa, and Kristoff lay to the left behind Anna, both of the boys spooning against their loves. And one after the other, Peter and Kristoff signaled their sleep with soft, slow pulls from their lungs, but Anna and Elsa's minds were racing too hard to rest, and so they didn't even try.

"Do you remember what mother used to sing to us when we wouldn't go to bed?" Elsa whispered.

"Vaguely." She whispered back.

"Visselulle, nu barnlil! Sov nu sødt og sov nu længe! skønt din vugge stander stil, uden dun og uden gænge." Elsa crooned and Anna pressed herself closer, nestling her head into the crook of Elsa's neck as she savored the sweet words, feigning that it was her mother singing. They sounded so much alike.

("Lullaby, little Love,  
Slumber sweetly, slumber deep,  
Though your cradle will not move,  
I shall lull you, Child, to sleep.")

"Yeah, that's it. Do you remember anymore of it?"

"No... Not really. Just tiny bits and pieces. I didn't want her to sing it to me anymore when I had to be separated from you. It made me too sad."

"That wasn't fair, what they did. I know why they did it, but it still wasn't fair. What you did to me was an accident. We were little kids. It killed me not being able to spend time with you."

"I felt the same way. I was so terrified of not being able to contain it to realize that that's not what I should've worried about. I just didn't want to have the power at all, so I focused on not letting it out, when I should've focused on making it stronger.I love being able to make people happy with them now. I love being able to happily embrace it."

"I'm glad to hear that." Finally a yawn tore it's way up her chest and that's when Anna felt a heavy weight fall onto her shoulders. They laid there in a comfortable silence for a while and Elsa started to feel the same heaviness that Anna did. And then Anna quietly asked, with a small, but burning voice, "Do you think tomorrow's gonna come?"

Elsa kissed Anna's forehead sweetly and hugged her tighter, breathing her in, and then she answered softly, "Of course. It wouldn't miss itself for the world."


	17. In every meaning of the word

Panic attacks became a usual staple to Elsa's schedule for the few days afterward. The sheer stress from waiting for her bird to come back was driving her up every wall, and she was constantly searching for something to do to stave it off. Anna was just as desperate to always be doing something to keep the memory of her son buried deep until she felt that she could handle it better. They spent most of their time together, leaving Kristoff on his own a lot.

Kristoff actually spent a lot of time with Peter though, and Peter was glad for the company, even if it was with another man with blonde hair. Kristoff took Peter for walks around the castle a lot, and Peter slowly, but surely began to regain his balance and strength in his weaken legs as the muscle came back. Kristoff even took Peter to his bakery. His brothers all swarmed him and Peter almost swooned from their bellowing voices and vice like hugs, but can you blame their excitement? They had all started to lose hope they'd ever see him again, what with no word from him in so long. Plus, he was made hidden from the whole kingdom to keep him safe from Viktor. Also, Christopher, their cousin sent to run the place, was just a huge pain in the ass to them all.

"Well? Tell us what happened!" Peter's oldest brother asked. They all sat out in the front store at two small tables pulled together to make one.

"Nothing good, as you can probably see. I never made it to that convention."

"You'd be fat if you did!" His second brother loudly joked with a heart chuckle.

"Probably. No, I just got swept up in something nasty. It's been hard enough to tell the girls..."

"Girls? What girls?" His oldest brother asked.

"Elsa and Anna..."

"You mean to be telling me that you've been cooped up in the castle this whole time?!" He asked with mock anger.

"Well, just for the past two and half weeks. I couldn't think of anything but to get to Elsa. I had to warn her, but before I could I passed out for like a week, and for this past one I've been recuperating. I've been through hell and back too many times to count."

"Okay, then what happened? What did you have to warn the queen about?"

"About that king that came through here."

"Viktor?"

"Yeah, him..." Peter cast his eyes down onto the dirty table surface and he started to feel cold inside again, like he always did in Adalinda. It was never warm there. It was always cold, so cold you swear it was penetrating into your heart.

"Did he hurt you?" His third oldest brother finally piped up. Zach was always pretty quiet and observant.

"You could say that... You could also say he did a lot worse that just hurt me..." His eyes unwillingly started to glisten, and he simply dropped his head into his hands to hide his face.

"Hey, little brother. It's alright. We are pushing a little hard. You don't have to tell us everything right now. We've just missed you so much Pete, and we are so glad to see you." His oldest brother practically cooed out, placing a gentle, albeit giant, hand on Peter's shoulder, and when Peter involuntarily flinched, he took it off.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to-." Peter sighed heavily into his frail hands.

"Don't apologize, it's alright. Can I at least have a hug from my favorite youngest brother?" Peter slowly lifted his head up, exposing trails from his silent tears on his face, and he studied his older brother's face for a second to see if he was being genuine. He was. Peter nodded his head a little, and then his brother carefully wrapped his thick arms around him, and after a few long moments the rest of his brothers got up and came over to join in.

"I love you guys." Peter whimpered.

"We love you too little brother." His brothers said almost simultaneously.

* * *

"Anna? Are you in there?" It was the last place she could think of she'd be, in their old room.

"Yeah, I'm in here." A distracted voice answered.

Elsa opened the door gently, and then closed it carefully behind her. She didn't know why she felt like she needed to be so careful with it. It wasn't going to break.

"I thought I'd find you in here." Elsa mindlessly said to crack the silence in the room. Anna sat against the wall where her bed used to be. She had her elbows on her knees and she was staring intently at a doll in her hands; a doll with blonde hair, wearing a blue dress and tiny tiara upon it's head. "What are you doing?" Elsa asked.

"Remembering." Anna's voice was dripping with nostalgia.

"Remembering what?" Elsa crept over to her, again being so gentle, like the very air was going to shatter at every single little movement she made.

"Us. The way we used to be."

"We're the same way again... Aren't we?" Elsa stopped a few steps in front of her and rubbed at her arms, completely unsure how to react.

"Yeah. We are... I just still can't understand why they thought what they did was best. I would sit here, on my bed, and just stare at this little doll for hours on end, missing you like hell. I don't know why, but I'm starting to miss you again."

"We've been spending almost every waking moment together for the past three days."

"Yeah, I know." Anna sighed and then blew the hair out of her eyes, only for it to fall back where it was again, and so she huffed out of frustration. "I guess you don't though." Finally Anna dragged her eyes away from the doll and laid them to rest on it's inspiration.

"I don't know what?" Elsa's breath felt strangled inside her lungs.

"Your bird finally returned a little while ago. It was dead." Elsa's knees shook violently, then she just fell straight down. Her eyes were impossibly wide, like they were trying to stretch big enough to swallow her whole. "I guess that means there is no sneaking up on him. Like you said last week, you've gotta handle this the old fashion way, head on and hope for the best."

"Why didn't anyone tell me?" Elsa asked breathlessly.

"I wanted to be the one to tell you. That way I can be here to calm you down."

"I am calm." Elsa said with a shaky breath

"Really?" Anna's brow cocked up with sarcasm.

"Yes." Elsa's breath came out much more sturdy with forced enthusiasm this time.

"Then why is ice growing out of you?" A hint of fear had singed Anna's voice.

"I'm pissed." Elsa jumped up in one fluid motion. She began to pace about the room, more and more ice growing from her. From her shoulders and elbows, her chest and and shins. Armor. Her clothes become enveloped with her ice as she coated herself in it's freezing toggery. "He really killed it?" She demanded more than asked.

"Yeah..." Anna said placing her Elsa doll on the ground beside her.

"How many times is too many?" Elsa mumbled to herself. Her clothes were completely invisible under her icy armor. "I am so _sick_, and I am so _tired_ of his bullshit. I'm going to fucking kill _him_ and see how _he_ likes it!"

"Elsa!" Anna gasped.

"_**What**_?!" Elsa turned and shouted, rage rampaging it's destructive way through her.

Anna jumped back with another loud gasp. She didn't know what to say. She'd never heard her sister, nor her parents even! say that "f" word before. It sounded so misplaced on her usually regal voice.

"Oh my God... Anna I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to say it like that." She came closer to Anna to try and console her, and Anna leapt up and ran into her with a walloping hug.

"You scared me." Anna whispered gently, as if to dissolve the rage coursing in her sister's veins.

"I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to snap like that. I'm jut so... So... Mad."

"So am I." Anna pulled away, and slid her hands down to rest on Elsa's ice covered forearms. "Trust me, I'd love to kill the bastard too."

"Well, too bad. He's mine."

"Elsa, listen to yourself! What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that I'm going to kill Viktor?"

"I know what you're saying, stupid."

"Then why did you ask?"

"Listen to yourself damn it! You sound like some teenager without a care in the world. As if you have nothing to lose!"

"Anna, I know what I'm risking. I am risking my life, but I'd much rather risk my life than my country."

"The sentiment is nice, but-"

"We've been through this Anna. I'm not backing down!" Elsa recoiled away and stormed off a little ways, leaving Anna stunned and silent. "I'm tired of being afraid." Elsa made herself turn around to look back at Anna, her face frozen in pain at how she just emotionally smacked her down. "If the worst comes to pass, I will make sure to make Death afraid to take me with Him. If worse comes to pass, I will make sure He doesn't take me alone. I will have Viktor's hand in mine and I will guide him to the lowest depths of Hell myself."

"Elsa, don't say that! You're not going to die! You can't die."

"Anna..." Elsa sighed, pinching the top of the bridge of her nose. "Let's be reasonable. It's an enormous possibility. We can't just ignore it."

"Well I can!"

"Then you're a fool Anna. I lovely, precious fool, and I envy that. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an army to attend to." And with that Elsa turned back around and headed towards the door.

Anna just stood there for a moment, processing everything that just happened. She could've sworn that whole argument took place within a single second. It whizzed past her without her consent, and that made her push her body forward to chase after her sister who just left her stranded alone in the room.


	18. My ships have sails that are made of ice

"GO! RUN NOW!" A man shrieked before fire quickly consumed him whole. The men he demanded to run did, and they had never ran so fast in their lives. They grew tired quickly but they couldn't stop, they'd die in less than an instant if they did. The man that warned them knew that, and so he sacrificed himself so they could get away. The dragons basked in the pleasure of their first kill in millenniums.

Viktor strode forward, pride and joy radiating from him like sunlight, as his cowardly men scrambled and zoomed past him. His face was carved with a malicious smile and his brother's and sister's fire reflected from his brilliant white teeth. Their flames licked him but he pressed on, unaffected, unscathed.

"Yes! Awaken! Scorch the earth and make it yours once more!" His voice boomed over their fires and roars, and they started to calm down at the sound him. It went dark as they went silent, bowing their heads in respect to their master when they could finally remember who owned that powerful voice.

"It is time to finally reclaim this world. It has always been ours! And now there is nothing and no one who can stop me this time. I had a vision last night, in a dream. The gods have all died. No one can protect their pathetic humans anymore. Now we will conquer their whole race and we will rule them as the new gods! This tiny plot of land was never enough for us. We deserve so much more. So, let's go take it! Take it all! Every last treasure! It is all ours for the easy taking! For no one is brave enough to face you anymore! My daughter sent a meager bird to tell me that I am to punished. She is too afraid to send herself, or someone real. Love is a terrible burden my family, so cast away your hearts now! YOU WILL NO LONGER NEED THEM!" He howled into the expansive caverns and his brothers and sisters joined him. As their voices thundered they took their meaty talons and clawed at their chests until they reached their hearts and they tore them out. Many threw them to the ground and burnt them until they finally stopped beating, other simply swallowed them as they still pounded, crawling down their throats. Then Viktor himself ripped his heart out of his chest and watched it beat in his hand, the blood still pumping out the shredded ends. Then he stuffed as much as he could in his mouth and chomped down on it, tearing away much of it, the he spat it out, completely disowning it, and he hurled it into the air.

The damp freezing air filled him through the gaping hole in his chest. He stumbled slightly as he came closer to his nearest brother and dipped his hand in the steaming blood surrounding the massive heart that it had tore out, and with his hand covered in blood he stuck it in his chest, swirling it around to coat everything it touched evenly and his fatal wound began to heal and close itself, and he then became self sustaining on his own animosity.

"MY NAME IS AFANASY! MY NAME MEANS IMMORTAL!" He bellowed out from his belly, and his voice clapped off of his family's thick scales and the mountains sharp walls all around. He felt drunk with power.

He raced to climb his brother of whom he took the blood, and when he slid into place on it's thick neck he kicked the beast hard and it became startled at the command to move, but it understood and so the dragon drew out it's mighty wings, hitting all of his brothers and sisters. He rose onto his colossal feet and strained to push out his legs after thousands of years of never moving, but his muscles warmed at Viktor's harsh blows from both his feet and his vulgar words. He slowly pushed himself into a wobbly jog, shaking the whole cave terribly from his substantial weight, but he kept going faster and faster, and the small speck of dim, cloudy light at the far side of the cave grew bigger and bigger as he came nearer. He forced his massive wings to pump up and down, breaking off chunks from the ceiling when they extended up that high, but Viktor was not afraid of Death, and only kept inviting Him closer. Then as he went charging full speed, finally out in the open he let of a flaming roar as he leapt off the rocky platform and for the first time in ten thousands years he tasted the fresh air as he took flight, straight up into the thick, billowing clouds.

* * *

Elsa had arrived at her armed guard's head quarters. She stepped out from her carriage, without her footman's assistance, and she simply sauntered up the steps leading to the giant iron doors, which were opened at the sight of her setting foot on the cobblestone in front of the stairs.

The guards who opened the doors, bowed low to her, feeling highly honored by her presence, and a rush of excitement surged through them at the sight of her armor. It was clear as glass, spiked at the shoulder pads and shoes, arm and shin guards. Her iconic snowflake was emblazoned on her frosty chest plate.

"Your majesty! I'm glad you're here!" A rather large man, in stature more than size hollered, sprinting over to meet her.

Elsa rose her hand to silence him, and he even stopped dead in his tracks as well as fell silent, and Elsa continued on her way over to him.

"I want to leave. Now. I am ordering the deployment of every single troop right now." Elsa calmly barked. Her voice bit the commanding general's ear, and he felt it travel down his spine. His eyes were still hard though. He wasn't afraid of the woman who strode near him. He simply respected the power she held within her.

"Yes, your majesty."

"Tell them to overdress. It's going to be a frigid journey. We will take my ships."

"Your ships, my lady?"

"Yes. My. Ships. Assemble them at the docks and wait for me there. I only came here at a moment's whim. I still have something very important to do General."

"Pray tell?"

"I have to crown my sister queen."

"Queen?!" He thought the action was ridiculous. Arendelle would fair fine with a princess at the helm. Anna didn't need to be promoted higher. There's only one reason that would call for such measures to be taken.

That's when it dawned on him.

He looked left and right to his lesser captains beside him, optically commanding they stay right where they stood, and they optically nodded. The general then came up close to Elsa and whispered low so that only them two could hear. "Do you not expect to come back my lady?"

Her eyes were beyond hard; they could've split diamonds, as he stared him down, but he did not falter. Without so much a tiny crack or a swell of emotion did she respond with a single heart felt word. "No."

"Do you not think your armies to be sufficient enough to keep you from death?"

"I am willing to do whatever it takes to kill Viktor. I **_will_** be the one to kill him General. Even if that means _I_ am killed in the process." Her voice was haunting to him and he felt her words drill into his bones, and push out his marrow.

"I just want to make sure."

"I am sure General."

He backed up and stepped away leaving her to think about what she just said. She had sworn with all her vengeance, and she had sworn her life away. All without a pause, or second thought.

She found herself back in the carriage when she could hear again. When the general walked away she could only hear this terrible ringing sound in her ears, but now she could hear the clopping of horse hooves. She could see the jostling of the carriage. She could smell the freshly reupholstered leather on which she sat. She was just busy accepting death. She was a realist after all.

When she got back to the castle she went straight for her parent's room. She remembered seeing something she knew she needed in there the last time she came in. She went to find it and had a servant boy grab a pillow from the bed to carry it on. Then the two of them left to go to the dining hall. To Elsa that was the real meeting room. People show their real colors when they eat in front of you, and they are so much more bright then when they are trying to act civilized in a heated debate.

"No one is in here your majesty." The boy diligently observed aloud. He was only nine at the most, but he was perfect for his task nonetheless. Besides, he was handy.

"Just wait here." She lightly demanded and she left the big room to go search for who she needed.

"Queen Elsa!" Wilbur called out from behind her on her way to her first room, thinking Anna stayed there when she stormed out. She never heard Anna call out, and she was so excited and she ran so fast Anna couldn't keep up with her, so she let her go.

Elsa turned around to face the balding man. "I need Anna. And Kristoff too. Do you know where they are?"

"Why they're in the kitchens! Kristoff has returned with Peter from taking him to his bakery, and now he is trying to cook. Anna apparently came in sobbing about something, but she was too incoherent, so Peter's been wasting no resource of sweetness to cheer her up as we speak."

"Thank you!" Elsa ran back to the dining hall and flung the doors open and she saw the little servant boy hiding in the shadows of a corner of the room, while Anna and Kristoff were now sitting at the long table in the center of the hall.

"Elsa?" Kristoff asked looking up at the sprinting figure racing towards them.

Anna looked up at the sound of the name and immediately leapt out of her seat, out from Kristoff's warm arms, and away from the plate of fresh cookies that were still steaming with their freshness, and she practically tackled her sister to the ground with a hug.

"Why didn't you stop! Why did you just leave me there!" Anna screamed.

"I had to tell my general to prepare. We're leaving now." Elsa squeezed out from her crushed lungs as Anna had her in a vice like grip.

"What?" Anna asked breathlessly as she pulled back, and a quick tear fell from Anna's eye and it shattered Elsa's already broken heart.

"Oh no, for the love of God, please don't cry." Elsa begged, and Anna clamped her eyes shut. She didn't want to see her sister's face pleading for her to be peaceful. She tried imagining the doll's face. Two black dots for her eyes and a black curved line for her smile. An eternal smile, on that would never wilt. Anna didn't feel like crying, it was just that her brain was just lose inside her head, and the tears came out on their own.

After several failed attempts to get Anna to listen again Elsa simply brushed her lips against Anna's sweetly before repeating one more time, "I'm coming back." Anna finally opened her eyes again, and nodded her head with empty understanding. For the first time she felt like she didn't believe her. She could hear Elsa lying to her plainly and she knew she couldn't do anything about it.

Then Elsa grabbed for her tiara on top of her head and pulled it out of her hair. Then she gazed upon it in her slender hands for a moment, letting the sentiment from deep inside her seep through her skin and into the crafted gold, then she kissed it on the sapphire and looked to Anna as placed it on her head nestling it in that strawberry blonde hair of hers.

"I am very proud to call you my sister. Now, I am proud to bestow my title upon you, Queen Anna of Arendelle." Elsa beamed, her whole face contorted with feigned joy.

Anna violently shuddered at her sister's words, her whole body quivering. Then she slowly reached her shaking hands up to feel the tiara, to make sure it was really there; that this was actually happening, that her sister was going to leave and put her in complete control.

"I will write as much as I can. I love you Anna." Elsa folded herself over her little sister just one more time, clinging onto her for her dear life and she began to physically ache at the fact that she was going to have to let go soon. She just wanted this whole thing to be over.

Elsa practically tore herself away from her and stepped over to Kristoff, but Anna followed close behind.

"Please stand up." Elsa asked of him and then she signaled with her hand for someone behind her to come up, and the servant boy, still carrying the pillow, stepped forward. Elsa turned around and grabbed for the golden crown atop the embroidered pillow, and then she turned back around to face Kristoff again. His face was void of all emotion. He couldn't feel a thing, metaphorically or physically.

"This was my father's." Elsa explained while she reached up to place the crown on Kristoff's head, but he raised his hands and grabbed at her wrists and stopped her from coming closer to him and he just disconsolately glared at the golden crown before his eyes with fear.

"No." That was all he could say. Knight was enough. Prince was too much. King was impossible.

"Yes." Elsa broke through his grasp and finally placed the crown on top his head. "I bequeath the power and title unto you and declare you King Kristoff of Arendelle. And, God willing, short may you reign." Then she raised herself to the balls of her feet and pressed her lip to his softly, but, just like Anna, he didn't kiss back. Anna was too sad, and he was too afraid.

Then Elsa lowered herself back down and lifted her hands to cup both their faces, stroking their tear stained cheeks with her thumbs. Anna raised her hand to cover and hold Elsa's but Kristoff didn't move a single muscle. He felt like he was going to go crashing through the floor. The crown upon his head held a crushing weight over him.

"I love you too Elsa." Anna softly spoke. She had so much more to say, but none of it felt right. She wasn't going to say goodbye though. No. You weren't going to hear that accursed word leave her lips. Elsa thought the same thing.

She took back her hands and turned on her heel and simply fled the room. A whole crown of ice grew from her head as she briskly quitted away, willing strength into her legs to keep her moving forward. Not even when she finally made it passed the door, millions of miles away, did she look back. She knew that if she did she would never look forward again.

"I already miss you too." Elsa murmured wistfully to herself in the empty hallway. Was it really just an hour ago that Anna was telling **_her_** that?

She traveled alone down to the docks, not even willing to say goodbye to he staff first. The whole entire armed guard were all lined up in orderly blocks waiting for instruction. There were thousands of soldiers crowding the pier.

"There she is General." A major said as the general was going off into his own little world, cursing the whole situation. He turned around and saw her coming and fashionably marched over to her.

"Is everything taken care of my lady?"

"Yes, General. It is." She went right passed him, and kept going towards the shore, but still staying on the wooden pier.

She stopped the very edge of it, and everyone behind her stared at her with confusion as she lifted her hands up and they began to glow bright.

"What's she doing?" Said one soldier.

"Shouldn't someone be telling us orders?" Another soldier far away asked, to far away to see what was happening. "I'm tired of just standing h-" His jaw dropped at the sight of a towering vessel, and he had to close his eyes when the sun's light was fractured by the ice that blocked it.

Elsa felt that she should've gotten tired, but she felt just fine. Actually she felt amazing. She commanded the fjord before her to sprout our hundred of titanics the likes of which no one has ever seen. Over half of them already carrying passengers, primed for war. Their voices stung the air with their frost bite as they roared to life as sentient beings as the soldiers of winter. Not even a drop of sweat has perspired on Elsa's brow. The only thing on her face was a grin, broad and lovely at her work.

She lowered her hands and turned around in a rather dramatic way and she was forced to shout over her own frigid, boisterous battalion. "My ships, General!"

* * *

**I hope you'd all know that I'm not an Elsanna shipper. I have a little sister of my own, and so I just personally can't bring myself to ship them like that. They are too amazing as a brOTP anyways to ruin it with romance. But, I remember back when my sister and I were really young, we would always fight over something, and so my mother would make us kiss to forgive each other. God, I hated it because her kisses were always so sloppy and squishy; granted she was only three and I was five, but still... Eww.**


	19. The letter

Anna watched the ice ships sail away from the dining hall windows that she couldn't bring herself to leave. The ships faded into oblivion over the horizon quickly with a tempest that Elsa had stirred up herself. She wanted to get to Germany as fast as possible.

Helga ran into the room as a little boy left it, holding a pillow for some odd reason. She saw a terribly distraught Anna howling out the window after her sister, and Kristoff standing next to a table, his face even more pale than Peter's. The deep gold and brilliant jewels on his crown didn't help his ashen complexion much either. She decided it was best to go up to Kristoff nonetheless.

"What's happened? I can hear Anna clear down to the foyer!"

"Elsa's left. She just... Left."

"What are you talking about! And why are you wearing Charles' crown?!" She basically shrieked that last part and she lunged to rip it off his head.

"NO!" Anna barked, storming over to them. "He is king now!"

"King?! Oh, would someone **_please_** tell me what is happening?!"

"Elsa got her response from Viktor. He sent her back her messenger bird, dead. She has left to go to war. She was crowned Kristoff and I king and queen during her absence!" Anna shouted all in one breath, and when she was finished to heaved gulps of air back into her. Her face glistened a little and it was blood red, from anger more than screaming.

"What?" Helga gasped, stepping away from the boiling new queen.

"She's gone! Elsa has left! What is so hard to understand about that?! Elsa, my older sister, my perfect sister-" An unhindered sob wracked through her body and she struggled to regain herself voice but she still continued with it broken, "She left me all alone... As queen." Kristoff only wrapped himself around her, not even attempting to consider telling her that she had him, that she wasn't alone.

"Dear girl... Don't cry. I- I didn't mean to upset you..."

"You d-didn't upset me. I w-was already u-u-pset."

"Well, I'm also sorry to you, your majesty." Helga directed to Kristoff and she even curtsied towards him, and his face lit on fire with embarrassment. He bowed his head in riposte.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" Helga figured she might as well ask.

"No. Helga, there's nothing. Well, maybe one thing..." Anna said softly, hope latching on to the end of her sentence.

"Anything, pr-queen." Helga stammered.

Anna looked to the short, pudgy woman, squirming in her skin from her save at Anna's new title. Anna's eyes turned dark with sorrow, and she said with a lumbering voice, "You could go bring her back."

With those six words Helga's calloused heart fractured. "I certainly would if I had the means to do so."

Anna only nodded and turned her face away signaling that Helga was free to leave. Solemnly, Helga did finally turn after making sure there actually wasn't a single thing she could do to make anything better. She walked away and thanked God that she didn't hear Anna crying though.

Anna had a plan.

* * *

Dear Elsa,

You just left only about thirty minutes ago, but I already feel like it's been thirty years. Right now I don't care if a single one of these letters I'm going to wwrite everyday ever reach you. I'm going to get all this sadness out of me somehow.

I am proud of you too. You have come so far in these past five years we've spent together. Not a single person could ever replace the love in my heart for you, my dearest sister. The whole time you were talking though I could only think of mother. You channel her a lot. Sometimes though, I like to think she's channeling _herself_ through you, to talk to us again. Yeah sure you don't get to hear it since you're the one talking, but I don't feel like she only wants me to hear her. I know I feel dad's voice come out of my mouth a lot. He always was giving me a this philosophical advice that I just couldn't bring myself to appreciate.

I thought that when I went to go find you five years ago the world felt pretty big, mainly because I didn't one single clue where you were, and I didn't know where I was what so ever. Watching all your gorgeous ships sail off into the sun made me realize that the world is even bigger than just a trek up a perilous mountain.

I wish you would've said goodbye to Peter before you left. He is completely heartbroken, much like everyone else, but trust me when I say it hurts him the mot. Well, the fourth most. There's of course me first, then Kristoff, then Olaf, and _then_ Peter. Olaf's cried the hardest out of everyone though. I'm glad you're not here to hear it. It hurts to hear him be so sad. I thought it was impossible for him to even feel the emotion...

I feel like I'm rambling.. Am I rambling? I feel much better though already, just writing out my demons.

The whole kingdom has been alerted that Kristoff and I have been crowned king and queen by now. Helga about had a breakdown. She didn't think you'd crown Kristoff king, since we don't have one in the first place. I just said that it was fair to you. You didn't want him to feel like he wasn't important. You're very good at making people feel important.

I also can't help but cringe at this sick twist of irony. Only last week was I telling you how I am so glad to not have to suffer from your responsibilities to Arendelle. Sure, being a princess is a lot of hard work, but it's nothing to what you've taught me over the past few days. I felt prepared for this when you were hear with me, but now that you're gone everything you've taught me sailed away with you. Helga tripped up and corrected herself and called me queen and let me tell you, I hated the sound of it. I'm going to make you proud though, and I will be a marvelous queen, just you see.

Love, love, love, love,

Your baby sister Anna.

P.S. You will see. You did make a promise.

* * *

"I'm finished." Anna declared with a smile.

"Can I read it!" Olaf asked eagerly and Anna chortled as she passed it down to him from the desk, Elsa's desk.

"Just don't cry on it, or you'll smudge the ink." Anna jested, relaxing fully into the chair she sat in, the one that made her sister feel powerful and safe.

Olaf stuck his tongue out at her, then he dove into the letter, making an occasional face of happiness, and scoffed at the part of him being a cry baby, but he just kept reading until the end to say something.

"I didn't cry that hard." He angrily mumbled thrusting his wooden hand out to give Anna back the letter.

"Sure you didn't." Anna smiled again and slid the letter into an envelope and sealed it with Elsa'a fancy royal stamp.

"I didn't!" Olaf contended. Anna stood up and walked out of the room with Olaf following to walk beside her down the hall. "Where are we going?"

"To get a pigeon."

"Why?"

"Do you know how to get a letter to a speeding ship?"

"Take a boat?"

"She's going much too fast for that. I can't think of anything else but a bird. I just hope it doesn't trigger her..."

"Why?"

"That's how she sent King Viktor her declaration of war. He sent it back dead. She had made it out of snow."

"Oh..." Olaf looked down to the carpet, not sure what to say. Well, he was sure not to ask why again.

"Yeah... Maybe this will cheer her up though. Make messenger birds good in her mind again."

"Maybe."

Anna sighed and looked down at the envelope in her hands. "Maybe."


	20. Rough seas

**I only had from three thirty to four thirty to write today, since I had to work basically all day, and workout in the morning, so yeah, this is short, and I'm really sorry, but I also didn't want to not write anything because I love you guys too much. :) Please tell me what you think too. I feel like I'm really starting to lose steam with this story. I want to update it everyday, but it's just so difficult to write a new chapter every single day, and I even forget what I want to happen sometimes!**

* * *

Dearest Anna,

You are truly a precious human being. I had made a vow to not cry until this I all behind me us, but I cried like a baby at your letter. You will never be able to understand how much I really needed to it. Being a woman on the seas is more rough than the seas themselves. But, please, for the love of God, and everything holy, write everyday! Every hour every day if that's what you need! They will never bother me. It will actually get me away from these wretched men. They mean well, don't get me wrong it's just that they're so... Vulgar. The actual sailors are much worse than the soldiers. It's still quite disturbing having anyone of them thinking they can have their way with me. I know I've always said that I don't want to ever use my powers to hurt people, but I figure since that's what I'm on my way do... So, quite a few men have awoken to frozen cocks, and I may or may not have had anything to do with that

Please tell Olaf how deeply sorry I am to have hurt him though. I never meant to just up and leave, but I couldn't just sit there and wait for my mental wounds to heal. As for what to tell Peter... I'll just write him my own letter. No need to bother you with details.

I hear father's words come out of you all the time. You really have become quite wise because of him. They never really left it feels like, if I sound like mother and you sound like father. It's funny how it's taken so long to realize that, well unless you've always known. God, I just miss them so much, but it's so comforting to know that they're in our heads like that.

I'd love to write more right now, but I keep getting interrupted. I will always take the time to read your letter's though, I just can't always give you back the response you deserve. Oh Anna, you deserve so much more than what I can give you. I wish I could give you the normal life you deserve. I wish I could bring Robert back. I wish I could come back. I'm fighting every single urge to turn us around, just so I can be with you all again. I didn't think I would regret this this much.

With all my love,

Your old hag of a sister Elsa

P.S. I know I promised.

* * *

That was the second time Elsa cried after swearing she wouldn't. And, once more the captain of the ship she rode on came barging in, but stood aghast at the sight of her weeping into her arms on the ice table. He knew he couldn't just walk out, she must have heard him come in, what with all the hollering he'd done.

"My lady?..."

"I'm fine." Elsa said into her arms, and she took a second to compose herself before lifting her head to see what the man wanted this time. "What is it now?" She asked a little more harsh than she intended.

"I- uh... Nothing, I simply walked into the wrong room. Please excuse me." He got the hell out of there so fast, and Elsa felt so thankful for man's terrible skills at comforting women. She really just wanted to be alone. She didn't start crying again though, but relaxed into the ice chair she made, and closed her eyes and imagined being home. It was warm there, and Peter was there, and Anna was chasing Kristoff as he stole her pint of beer, and Elsa felt her face lift up with a smile. She was happy again, that was all it took. Maybe it would always be enough, just her feigned memories.


	21. Premonition

Elsa was never known to be a lier you can imagine the pain she bore, caused from the dissonance of doing so. It ripped her heart open every time she wrote something promising that she would return.

When she put down her quill, that's when it hit her; the utter peace surging through the still air. Her stomach held a swirling vortex inside her. Nothing seemed right. It was much _too_ quiet. She's heard moments of silence that were louder. She folded the letters and slid them into an envelope and called out for her messenger bird her and Anna were using to communicate with each other. She let the bird take it into it's talons and then Elsa carried it outside and the moment she stepped foot outside the room it spread its wings and flew away behind her, away from the gathering clouds.

"Would you like us to lay anchor here, and take the boats to shore?" Her captain inquired quietly, seeing how disturbed she looked.

"He has to have seen us by now. We're not a surprise,but he is. We keep moving. Always, from here on out, just keep moving forward. There is no time to look back where we're going."

"Yes, your majesty." The captain responded then turned to go back to the helm. Elsa kept her hard gaze upon the looming mountains, and how they scraped the sky with their spiky precipices.

* * *

Anna _was _walking out of her room, wanting to go see of another letter had come for her yet, but a powerful blast of premonition coursed their her tired body and she stumbled over herself as she fell to the ground.

"Anna!" Kristoff jumped off the bed and raced over to his fallen wife. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah."Anna grunted as she clutched to her stomach.

"What'd you trip over?"

"Nothing... Nothing, I just... fell."

"Well, can you get up?"

"I think so." Anna gradually rose to her feet, Kristoff holding on to her to give her support. "That was weird."

"What happened?"

"I just got this feeling that something terrible is going to happen. I need to go!" Anna hurried out of the room and away from Kristoff's guarding hands.

"Wait! Where?!" Kristoff shouted after her as she sprinted away madly.

"The bird tower!"

Together they dashed through the halls, bounding down every corner, avoiding everyone they could because they weren't going to slow down or stop for anyone. Kristoff needed to stop desperately to catch his breath but Anna wouldn't yield. She had too much at stake, liker her sanity and plain metal health. He didn't.

Finally they arrived the the big wooden doors outside to the bird tower and Anna threw them open with complete ease and bounded up the spiraling staircase, and only then did she feel how sore she was from all her running before, but she still wouldn't allow herself to slow down. Up and up and up she went, until she came upon the top floor and flung open its doors, startling all the resting birds, save one. It was just flying in the window. Kristoff passed on the offer of running up stairs, and simply walked the whole way, not wanting to leave his frenzied wife alone, but he knew he wasn't going to beat her up there so he didn't even try.

"Give it here." Anna gasped, throwing out her hand to retrieve the letter from the bird's feet. The bird flew over to her as she came running towards him and dropped the envelope straight into her hands. "Good boy." She praised the bird grinning and then she tore open the envelope viciously, and almost tore the letter in half with how hard she yanked it out and open. Her eyes grew wide and more wide with each word they passed over as they devoured the page.

* * *

Dearest Anna,

We all shall be arriving to our destiny today. Please send every prayer you can. We are so close to these mountains, and Anna, all those fairy tales, why they don't nearly pay enough justice to the true size of these colossal things! I thought the North Mountain was pretty big, but it's like a pebble compared to this place. I wish you could see them to really understand what I'm talking about. I don't wish you were here though. As much as I would love to have you by my side, this just isn't a place for cheerful people like you.

I had a dream last night I want to tell you about. I was all alone at first, in this very dark place, but I could see just fine. I don't know how to explain it. I just started walking around trying to find where I was, but there was jut a bunch of nothingness all around me. Then I heard a noise, so I turned around to see behind me and I saw this massive gathering of people there. They were dressed rather strangely, in clothes fit for before the medieval period it seemed. Anyways, they were all falling to their knees, and they had their arms and hands outstretched towards me. I just knew that they were beckoning to me.

I started to walk over to them, and the closer I came they started shrinking. Pieces of them started flying off into the wind, the nonexistent wind, like dust. I grew worried so I started to run towards them and that made them fade away faster, but I just had to get over to them, to make them okay again. They were all crying out something as they blew away in the air, and by the time I finally reached where they used to be they were all gone. There wasn't a single trace of them ever being there. It left a horrible, ominous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I could never quite understand what they were saying before they all vanished, and that's what been haunting me for the past hour since I woke.

I just really needed to tell someone, and no one around here cares. I know you do.

And, since we'll be arriving at the shore at any moment I think it wise to tell you that this may be my last letter for a while. Wow, I didn't think that would hurt me so much to say that. You feel a lot farther away now after having actually seen the words. I don't like this feeling at all.

Please know that I love you more than anything though, Anna. There is not a single thing that I would not do for you. You are the **best** little sister anyone could ever dream to have. You have made me so strong, and I only wish I could have made you stronger as well, or at least had the chance to be strong for the both of us. I can't imagine how it must feel to be so strong like you, but right now I wish I could. I wish father was still alive to handle this for me. I don't want to do this anymore.

I'm so tired of all my regrets. They have worn my heart thin over these past three days on this damn ship. I regret obeying our parents order to stay away form everyone, including you. I regret ever hating the sweet sensation of being hammered drunk. I regret ever falling in love. I know that's a terrible thing to regret, but warm hearts have trouble beating in the cold, and it's freezing here. It's been a very long time since I've ever felt the cold. I've simply grown used to it.

With every last ounce of myself do I love thee,

Your loving sister, Elsa.

* * *

"Me too." Anna whimpered into the morning, surrounded by birds happily eating their oats. Kristoff had just reached the door by the time she finished.

"You too what?" He asked gingerly, like his word were going to shatter the fragile glass surrounding her.

"I love Elsa with every ounce of me. I never thought I'd miss her this much." Anna answered, and then wiped away a falling tear. She wasn't going to cry. She had vowed to not cry until this was all over as well, just like her big sister.

"Well, would you rather miss her, or just hate her like any other sibling would do?"

"Why would I ever hate her?" Anna spat out as she spun around.

"A lot of little siblings hate their older ones. It's normal." Kristoff raised his hands to aid his defensive words.

"Nothing is normal about hatred. You have to actually think about and force your mind to do it. Normalcy doesn't take any effort, it just happens." Anna argued, stepping closer to him.

"I'm sorry! I was just trying to make you feel better. At least you love her and you don't hate her is all." She just continued coming closer, glaring at him, but she ended up hugging him tightly, genuinely.

"Thank you then." She sighed. "I love you so much."

"I love you too Anna."

"What's this?! Hugs?! Without me?!" Olaf shouted angrily from the doorway, and both Anna and Kristoff turned to look over to him, smiles lacing their faces. He had seen them whizzing by earlier and decided he ought to be concerned, and went off after them as fast as his stubby legs could carry him.

"Well get over here then!" Anna shouted back and the snowman all but happily obliged and wobbled over on his tiny legs and joined them for a group hug. Elsa's letter still tugged on Anna's mind. The dream Elsa wrote of, it sounded very much like the one she had last night too. Anna heard what the men in her dream said quite clearly though. As they were dying they wailed over and over, "We cannot save her. We cannot save her. We cannot save her."


	22. Undying

"Another damn bird?! It's going to fucking give us away!" The General hissed as a pigeon flew over and dropped a letter neatly into Elsa's waiting outstretched hands. They were maybe one hundred feet away from the foot of the looming mountains. The earth beneath them was quaking violently and you could hear the sound of soldiers vomiting from the sheer anxiety of knowing what was causing the quaking. They were all shaking in their armor as they marched towards their certain doom.

"How did it even fucking find us?"

Elsa ignored him and simply tore the envelope open and almost ripped the letter in half in the process. It was from Peter.

* * *

Dear Elsa,

I don't know if I should tell you this, but that dream you wrote Anna about. Well, she came to Kristoff and I and told us about how she had the same dream. She thought it was the gods that were the people withering away... She went on ranting that they looked like all the paintings she's seen of them. She even came in with her arms overflowing with drawings and sketches of them that she's done. I never knew she was an artist! But, yeah anyways... She thinks the dying men in both your dreams were the gods. She doesn't know why they were dying, and it really disturbed her very much when she learned that you had the same dream.

She was able to hear what they said to hear and I just really don't want to tell you, but I figure where ever you are, and what ever you're doing, nothing can get much worse. I'm knocking on wood for you right now.

She said they were saying "We can't save her."

Let me tell you, it took almost half of all the chocolate in Arendelle to calm her down when she came upon her own self realization that she had some sort of premonition that you were going to die.

You can't die though. You have to marry me first, remember? Our summer wedding? With ironic vanilla cake?

I love you Elsa. That's it. That's all.  
Peter

* * *

Now she tore up the paper in her hands. She didn't exactly feel angry or hurt, in fact she didn't know what to feel. She had to keep herself focused on her mission. She knew that she couldn't ever marry Peter. Viktor was going to make sure of that. But then again, she was going to make sure Viktor was going to die with her.

Suddenly, the earth stopped quaking and the mountains looked like they alive as they started crumbling from the force held within.

"IN COMING!" The General shrieked. The sky was burning before it became darkened with the millions of dragons spewing out of the mountains. All of them shooting flames from their gnarly mouths, deafening all below with their bone chilling roars.

Elsa tore her eyes away from the sight of them all zooming towards them like lightening and turned towards her towering ice battalion, each one being over thirty feet tall, and commanded with a strong voice, "NOW!" The winter soldiers all took aim with their crossbows and shot complete spears, ten feet tall, at the winged beasts, and one by one many of them dropped from the clouds and smacked against the earth, splitting it where they landed.

"DO NOT STOP!" Elsa shouted to them, then she looked to her left and to her right and made eye contact with every single man and the occasional woman that stood beside her, human beings in an armed mob. The drummers pounding away at their bass drums made all their racing hearts align to the single beat of war, and the hammered notes all struck them deep within their souls as nervous sweat beaded on their brows.

Elsa walked out to be in front of them, to take them all in, to see all their fear and all their courage intertwining together in their restless bones. "ARE YOU READY TO END THIS BLOODY LEGEND?!"

"YES!" They all eagerly shouted back, their faces contorted with rage.

Elsa pulled out her sword from it's sheath and the sound of the scraping metal resounded through the massive crowds, exciting them even more. "THAN ONWARD MARCH! FOR PRINCE ROBERT! FOR ARENDELLE! FOR YOUR LIVES!" She ferociously bellowed and every single soldier hollered out with a unified scream as the ice giants rained down there spears upon the dragons overhead.

Elsa turned around and went into a dead sprint forward, her brave warriors following. There was no time, no energy for calveries, or individual units. She was going to fight with everything she had, all at once, for this was not a logical war, but a vengeful one.

She ran towards the enemy on the ground and in the sky with her sword held high, then she back it back behind her, priming herself to swing it at the first body that came near her.

The poor bloke didn't know what he had done when he decided to go straight for the queen herself. His grin was still plainly visible on his face as his torso lay beside his legs, completely detached. Elsa swung her sword straight through him and sent an icy blast along with the contact of the metal and it severed him into two clean pieces. She didn't even look back at her first kill, she just kept going, trying to recall every lesson her father had taught her about sword fighting, which wasn't much since she was only a princess, and there's no room for princesses in battle. But now she was a queen, and queens were made to end wars that kings started.

Right as it seemed an enemy had a grasp at her life one of Elsa's soldiers leapt to her rescue behind her as she kept pushing on, slashing and hacking away at the mountain soldiers. They were all so large, unnaturally large compared to regular humans, but Elsa didn't pay any mind. They all fell as easily as any other man. In between slashing strokes she'd belt out ice from her frozen breath or she'd shoot out frozen arrows from her finger tips, taking aim for throats mainly. Anger was coursing through her like blood. She had never felt like that before, completely powerful. The feeling was intoxicating and she began to feel herself slipping as each man she aimed for fell to the ground dead. Then she saw a flash of red.

_'No... It can't be.'_

It wasn't, and Elsa's heart jump started again. It was merely another red headed soldier who had jumped in front of her to take a fire bolt that was meant for her. Not Anna. No, not Anna.

"Just... Go." The poor woman choked out as Elsa stared down at her in horror, and Elsa had to physically close her eyes with her hands to shut the image of the blackened flesh out from her mind as she ran away.

When she almost tripped over another dead body she finally opened her eyes to the gore of it all. She took a chance and glanced behind still running and jumping over countless bodies, all of them clawing at her ankles to drag her down to hell with them as their souls drifted out from their chests. She saw her ice battalion was half melted as dragons pelted them with their flames.

She stopped mid sprint and took a leap into the air and when she landed a giant blast of ice flew from her, freezing the blood drenched ground. She struggled to rise her hands into the air as she created a second legion of winter soldiers, even bigger than the first, and she never tired at the feat as she yielded them from the frozen earth. "GO! DEFEND THEM WITH YOUR LIVES!" She shouted at them above the thundering din around her, and they all set off towards their falling brothers. Their heavy footsteps making the earth quake beneath them.

Fire began to rain down on her, and she immediately sheathed her sword and shot out shields of ice to vanquish the flames hurdling towards her. She couldn't stay in one spot though, as her winter warriors were doing a marvelous job at felling the dragons and their massive bodies were dropping all around her, threatening to crush her. She had a mission to complete, and that's what drove her legs forward, bounding over dead bodies, and climbing over dead dragons.

A tiny little voice began to stir doubt in her heart. _'How are you possibly going to end this? Are going to kill every single dragon here? There are millions of them and only one of you.'_

In the legend the first elementals froze the dragons hearts and that allowed them to control the wild beasts. Elsa's head snapped up and she saw them spiraling above. She just had to aim carefully was all. Aim for their hearts, and not aim to kill them.

She stopped once more tore off her gauntlet and glove then stretched out her hand, and she squinted to better see where she thought the heart might be located on the the nearest dragon and with a deep breath she fired a bolt towards its chest where it hit its intended mark, she could just feel it. What she couldn't feel was the dragon bending to her will. She looked back down, confused and that's when she saw the scars on a nearby dragon's shredded chest. There was no heart there, only an extensive hole where it should have been.

_'What?'_

A villainous, blood curdling laugh ripped through the sky and pelted Elsa's ears with their sharp sting. She turned around, looking up, to face it, to face him.

Viktor had delivered himself to her. He came down upon her on his dragon and landed softly before her, the air rushing out from underneath it's mighty wings almost knocked her over. She drilled her feet into the ground and had ice form over them and she stayed in place. A scowl was stitched onto her face, and her left hand reached for the hilt of her sword.

"Now now my dear queen. Let me say something before I kill you." Elsa's scowl turned into a grimace at the laughter in his voice. "I just want to say that you look lovely. I really do appreciate all your effort into your wardrobe. And all of _this_!" He gestured his arm to the battling ice giants and dragons and simple men. "Truly! It is aspiring. It almost makes me hate to kill you."

"Too bad you won't." Elsa grunted, whipping out her sword, breaking through the ice at her feet and charging towards the scaly mammoth. She leapt into the air and shot out blasts of ice from her feet to propel her up and she flew towards Viktor's head, and she swung her sword at him, but he dove off his beast and pummeled the ground, looking up at her a she landed on his dragon's neck.

Elsa's eyes began to glow with wrath, and their intensity was enough to actually make Viktor look away for it was too bright for him. She straddled the dragon's neck like it's previous rider and kicked at him to make him go into the air. The dragon had no choice but to obey. He didn't know anyone else was on him, him never saw Viktor leap off and he thought the sound of someone hitting the ground behind him was the woman who flew over him.

Up the dragon went into the air, until he noticed his master on the ground looking up to him.

"Not very queen like to steal a man's dragon!" Viktor called out with a snarly grin.

Elsa's eyes narrowed on him, and she kicked at her dragon's neck again to command it to advance Viktor. "That's_ Ice Queen_ to you!" She barked. Then she slammed her fist down on the dragon's head and shouted, "Fire!" And once again the dragon had no choice. They have to obey their riders, no matter if they are friend or foe. He opened his mouth and Viktor watched with amusement as fire gathered at the back of it's throat to create a massive sphere of sheer destruction. He never dreamed it would actually strike at him, until he saw the flames come hurdling at him. He dove to his right and rolled over his shoulder twice to get out of the fire's range.

"Fine! Be that way." He said mainly to himself. He picked himself up and raced over to an open area and whistled out for another dragon, free of a rider, and one came to his aid, ignoring the ice giant it was previously melting to death. Another ice giant ran over to it with a raised ax in it's hand and before it could decapitate the beast another dragon came and shot at it with bullets of flame, effectively melting off it's arm.

The dragon came down low enough to sweep up Viktor in it's claws then brought him up onto it's back and from there Viktor skillfully ran among it's six foot spikes to get to where he could sit on it's smoothed out neck.

"Where is your sister _Ice Queen_?" He bellowed out as he raced back over to her on his new dragon. "Was she too much of a coward to fight with you? Or was she too scared of watching you die!" Another laugh tore it's way out of him and a chill went down Elsa's spine, and even her dragon felt her discomfort.

"DON'T CALL MY SISTER A COWARD!" Her eyes began to glow even more intense and she raised both of her hands into the air and between them grew a spiked sphere of ice. She shot it towards him and he wasn't fast enough to dodge it, but he was fast enough to have his dragon shoot at her with a fire bolt.

She gasped and instinctively blocked her face with her arms and a shield appeared before her only to be melted, and the heat left over from the flames scolded her face, burning her terribly, but she only scowled and made ready to strike him again with another ice sphere, but another fire bolt came towards her. She could see Viktor was hanging on to a spike growing out of his dragon's elbow and a smile erupted upon her lips at her little victory of displacing him, but she had to react to the fire blast and she threw her ice at it. Again she was saved, and again she made another sphere as the dragon came zooming over to her and Viktor climbed back on top. He ran along and past it's neck and onto the top of it's head and waited to get closer before finally leaping off, diving straight towards Elsa.

He stumbled a little but got onto his feet as quick as possible while dodging Elsa's attacks of biting ice. "You are determined! Aren't you?!" He shouted out behind the back of his hand he was using to block his face against the oncoming blizzard that Elsa was shooting at him. The cold was so intense he saw ice crystallizing on his fair skin, that was also turning a frost bitten blue. He snickered and kept pressing on. "Yes, you definitely _are_ a decedent from my loins. You won't give up! Even when you've already lost!"

"I will not lose! I WILL NOT FAIL!" Elsa pressed her will out even harder and she was almost able to knock him down, as her eyes glowed even more bright, blindingly, maddening bright as rage coursed through her.

"Look down my dear! All your men are dying! At your own hands!"

"**_NOOOO!_**"

He started stepping backwards, but she wouldn't relent and the frigid wind kept freezing everything they touched on Viktor, his skin, his clothes, his hair. She began to advance towards him, ensuring that we would fall to his death.

His dragon came to his aid though, without a call. He touched his forehead against the other dragon's, creating a bridge for Viktor to keep backing up onto, and so he did, and Elsa kept pressing on.

"Feisty! I admire that in a woman!" He snickered over the howling winds, and that's when Elsa had had enough. She stopped the blizzard at once and ran straight towards him, tearing her sword from it's scabbard, priming her arms to swing as hard as they could.

After all Peter had told her she still underestimated Viktor. As she swung at his chest he had already jumped high in the air, at least five feet.

He did have super human strength after all. She gasped at the sight of him sneering down at her. And everything went quiet for a second.

She couldn't hear the beating of the dragon' wings thrashing up and down to keep them airborne. She couldn't hear her still heart. All she heard was what those haunting voices were trying to tell her in her dream. It was crystal clear now as Viktor came down to deliver his only, and final, blow with the foot long spike in his hands.

_'We can't save you.'_

The spike contacted her skull and with her eyes still open he watched as their glow diminished, as all the light whatsoever faded away from them, and as she fell away from his line of vision completely.

"Oh Elsa. You silly girl." Viktor sighed and then he practically skipped over to where he could mount his dragon again. He didn't bother with watching her fall, he had her army to destroy.


	23. Living, Fighting, Breathing, Believing

She took the full blow to the head and she definitely heard something crack her skull, and down she fell, heavier than a rock, heavier than a mountain. There was about a thousand feet of empty sky for her to fall through.

Thankfully, she was too busy being dead and unconscious to be tense on her impact and so her bones didn't all shatter when they contacted the unforgiving earth. No, not all of them.

* * *

It was blacker than the dark. The night couldn't hold a candle to it's intensity, mainly because the dark would've swallowed it's light. Against all the dark was all this murky fog though. Elsa didn't think that was supposed to be there. Then she realized she was thinking. So, she tried to open her eyes but she couldn't; they already were. That's how she saw the fog in the first place. How did that slip her mind so easily?

She was still lying on her stomach like when she landed just a second ago, and when she moved her arm to begin to crawl she recoiled it back, knowing that it should have hurt, but it didn't. It didn't feel like it was there at all actually. She didn't even feel the ground that she was supposedly lying on. So, she decided she would try and stand up. If nothing felt broke then she must be okay.

She got on her knees and then placed her hands on them, but she couldn't feel anything. No texture, no warmth, not even cold, but she know her hands were on her knees. She pushed herself up onto her feet and took a second to gain her balance that she had expected to lose, but once again, there was nothing.

An orb of light, ghostly and small, appeared before her face. She didn't squint from the brightness of it, but stared at it in wonder. She could've sworn it was making a noise, almost like a hum or a small murmur.

She took a step towards the orb and it started to drift away from her and she instinctively went to follow it, and with each step she took everything around her grew brighter. After a little bit of walking, the whole landscape around her was lit up, but by nothing. She could still see her guide, with it's intense, glowing contrast though.

"Where are we?" Elsa finally asked and her voice echoed into the expansive void she found herself in. Nothing was changing or coming closer or anything. She couldn't feel herself moving forward, but when she looked down she was definitely walking... Somewhere.

"I don't know, I'm following you." The orb said so softly Elsa almost thought she had imagined it, but the tiny voice echoed out like hers did, but the orb's voice sounded weighed down, despite it's high pitch.

"But... You're in front of me?"

"You're walking backwards."

Elsa didn't feel the need to argue. She turned her direction, and the orb followed close behind.

"Where are you going?" The orb asked.

"Home." She answered resolutely, as if it was obvious.

"Where's that?"

"I-... I don't know."

"Why do you want to there?"

"Why are you asking so many questions?"

"Why are you answering them?"

"I don't know." She didn't really feel irritated at the orb's interrogation, but she didn't want to continue on with the conversation either, and luckily a familiar giggle made that possible. She spun around, scanning in all directions, but she still couldn't see anything but light all around her.

"Did you hear that too?" The orb asked.

Frustrated, Elsa sped off into a sprint. She didn't know where she was going and she didn't care. She was so desperate to see something, and she figured if she traveled far enough she would find it, something, anything! The orb floated beside her as she bounded through the empty nothingness. The giggle rang out again.

"I don't think it's real." The orb said to a frantic Elsa.

"But, it sounds so warm! So near!"

"I don't think it's real." The orb repeated.

"Well, who asked you! Damn it! Anna! Where are you?! I'm right here!"

"She isn't here Elsa."

Elsa stopped in her tracks. At first the voice sounded like the small, fuzzy voice of the orb, but as the sentence progressed the voice became deeper and more sturdy, quite... paternal like.

She slowly turned around with her eyes wide with panic and hope. When she finally saw him standing there a loud gasp flew from her lips and she stumbled back a few steps. She felt overjoyed at the sight of him, but she also felt like she had no choice.

"P-Papa?" He nodded his head gently and opened his arms for her to come in to. "Papa!" She rushed over to him and collapsed against his chest.

"How's my little girl?"

"I... I don't know..."

"That's okay sweetheart. _Here_, you are okay."

"Where is here? Where are we?" Elsa lifted away from her father and looked him in the eyes. She could finally feel. She felt him, his arms around her, the texture of the white robes he was wearing. Why was he wearing white robes?

Another fit of laughter rang in the air, but this one was much younger and free, more like a baby's. Elsa turned her head back to see where it was coming from and she couldn't believe what she saw.

"No... It can't be..." Elsa murmured as she shook her head trying to get the insane idea out her head.

"Why not?" Her father asked, stroking her arms to comfort her and she looked back at him. _'Why not?' _Then she looked back again.

"He's a beautiful baby. It's a shame this is how I had to meet my first grandchild, but it's wonderful all the same!" A brunette holding a tiny, chubby baby in her arms said as she strode towards Elsa and her father. She looked up from the smiling baby to Elsa and a little glimmer of adoration and love shone in her kind, blue eyes.

"Momma..."

"Hi baby." Her mother smiled at her and Elsa went over and hugged her carefully because of little Robert, but still as fiercely as she could.

"Robert!" Elsa cried out when she recognized the adorable, pudgy face in her mother's arms.

"So that's his name! Robert. Such a strong name, don't you think so Charles?" Her mother asked to her husband as he came over to them.

He wrapped his arm over his wife's shoulder and said with sarcastic pride, "Not as strong as Charles."

"Oh! Who asked you anyways!"

"You did dear." He then kissed her temple sweet and lovingly, and she sighed with contentment.

"So, where are we exactly?" Elsa asked, looking back up to her parents.

"Oh yes! Right. We're sorry we were a little late coming to meet you, so we sent you the angel to keep you company until we could get here." Her mother explained. Her tone conveying that everything she just said should have made perfect sense, but Elsa's facial expression proved her wrong.

"Angel? What, the glowing ball that keeps asking me questions?" Elsa asked, her voice growing more and more agitated, and she flailed out her arms gesturing towards the whole landscape and she saw the orb was gone. She stopped mid twirl and looked out to where she had last seen it, thinking to herself _'Wait, where did it go?'_. Then she started to look for it as if it could actually hide in the dim void.

"Sweetheart?" Her mother called out and stepped toward her to place a gentle hand on her shoulder. Elsa stood up at the touch and spun around. "He's not there anymore. You're in Heaven."

One millennium. Two millennium. Three millennium.

"No." Elsa spat out in disbelief. She wanted to cry, to bawl even! But she found that she just couldn't. Her mind wouldn't let her feel sad, but it did allow her disbelieve. Why? Why! She knew why. She knew she was going to die, so why did this all come as a shock to her? Then she remembered. When Anna made her swear that she would come back Anna had said to swear to God. Elsa only swore upon her undug grave. She didn't trust in God much, not since He took away her parents.

"Yes." Her mother affirmed with a sweet smile, but she didn't try to approach her any more than that. She remembered how Elsa was always afraid to be touched. She didn't know that Elsa had changed.

"Then why am I in Heaven? I just killed countless men! I've turned my back on God for years because of what He's put me through!"

Only shock, not horror and not fear, flashed across her parents eyes.

"What do you mean you just killed people?" Her father asked with utter confusion.

"I was battling King Viktor! And in one fell swoop he got me. It was all too easy for him. I had it coming... I didn't even try... I didn't-"

"Elsa, what on earth on you talking about?!" Her mother half way shouted, but Robert stayed at peace in her tender arms.

"Well, can't you guys see what's going on down there!"

"No! We can't see anything! It would only make us sad and there is no sadness in Heaven. There is no crying or weeping or gnashing of teeth. Only happiness." Her mother explained calmly, trying to wind down her distraught daughter as she was pacing back and forth holding her head in her hands as if it were going to explode.

"So... That's why you didn't know Robert's name? Well, then how did you know he was your grandson?" Elsa asked, stopping in her tracks at the revelation.

"A mother knows these things. Not even the chasm below can keep a mother's intuition at bay."

"Chasm?"

"Yes, the chasm." All four of them felt a warm tingle go down their backs. Elsa saw the look of utter and complete awe and love in her parent's eyes and turned around, following their beam and rested her icy, china blue eyes on His face; God Himself.

"The chasm is so that no one can leave here to reach Hell, and for no one on Earth to reach Heaven, unless they are granted passage of course. Only souls can tread here. I do on occasion make exceptions though." God dutifully explained with his booming voice. He looked nothing like the renditions or carvings or paintings that Elsa had ever seen of God.

From what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him. His hair was more white than virgin snow and his eyes pierced through her like flame. He was much more than the word stunning can describe. He was merely indescribable, well to Elsa anyway. Her parents could see Him for how He truly looked for they were free of their sins.

"You are a very strong girl Elsa. Forged from the magic of your race. Yes, it is possible for Magick and I to coexist, but that does not mean we get along. I've granted you all free will to chose Me, and so you have every right to refuse Me."

"But, if we don't then we go to Hell and you abandon us for dead?" Elsa snapped back at Him. That was one of the main reasons why she just couldn't get behind Christianity.

"Yes, but you see my dear child, I created you. If you forsake me, your Creator, your True Father, then I shall return the favor. Confucius had it half way right when he said an eye for an eye. It doesn't make the whole world blind, but only makes it lonely. I had to congratulate him at least before I sent him on his way down.

Right there. That was what made Elsa's mind go blank. Her mind was full of questions but at the moment He mentioned Confucius everything was lost to her.

"Then I will answer without you asking." God went on to say. He already knew every little word that swarmed over her curious heat and in her swirling mind.

"Yes, you are in Heaven. No, you are not dead. You are in your mortal, sinful body, in Heaven, in My presence. As to why? Well, you've gone twenty-five years of being burdened with this power. You had that dream of your people's gods crying out that they couldn't save you this time. You see, I never interfere with Magick. I do not go where I am unwanted. I hardly intervene unless everything is completely at stake, ever since The Great Flood. I do truly love you all, but you leave me no choice sometimes. I know you have always doubted My love, but you have never had a reason to. Ever since you accepted My Son into your heart as a little child I have always been right beside you, to pull you out of trouble, but you never bothered to grab My hand. Now, it is time to intervene. The Earth has gone by without a miracle for hundreds of years. Maybe it's time to give it one. You."

"Me." Elsa said in a dead tone.

"Yes. As I said, you are not dead. You could not feel before because I was healing your body. You are going to back and finish what you've started."

"What." Again, she said in a dead tone.

"You are going to back and finish what you've started." He repeated.

"But, it's all Your fault!" Elsa spat at him.

"My fault?"

"Yes! _Your _fault!"

"Please, explain then."

"Well... You could have stopped Viktor from regenerating all those times! Destroyed all the gods! Why didn't You?! I thought You were "All powerful" and things like that."

"I told you, I don't get in between Magick. If humans want to partake in it, so be it. I let you destroy your own gods. My followers have done that with your people's. My followers have torn down many people's deities. I have no need to do it Myself."

"Well, _excuse_ me, but that just sounds lazy coming from the all powerful, unstoppable God."

"Well, as Cicero once said, "To each his own."

"I thought that was Shakespeare."

"You thought wrong."

"Well!"

"Are you ready to leave yet?" He asked, feeling that the conversation was taking too long.

"You're serious?! You're going to make me go back and kill Viktor. Even though it strictly against the sixth commandment "Thou shall not kill?"

"Elsa, when I created the Ten Commandments I handed them to Moses knowing that humanity would never be able to uphold them. They are more like guidelines. Only My Son has been able to keep them while on His stay on Earth, but that is because He is God; He is perfect. You, Elsa, are not. You are a wonderful, courageous human being, who will not submit to pain any longer. I was with you on the North Mountain. I know your strength and I know your fears. I know your heart my dear child, for I created it. Do not doubt my love for you. I will always be with you."

Elsa's parents came forward and wrapped their arms around her, knowing she was going to be leaving soon. They didn't feel sad or disheartened though, but that didn't stop them from squeezing her close to them.

"You made a promise to your little sister Elsa. A good Christian _never_ breaks their promises."

"So, this is real. This is really happening." Elsa declared more than asked as she relished in the feeling of her parents love for the first time in five years.

"I am the Lord your God. I would never trick you and I would never deceive you."

"So... Am I forgiven... For everything? After all these years, after all the people I've killed?"

"Simply ask, and I shall forgive you and it will be forgotten."

"Yeah... Simple. Okay." Elsa sighed, then she bowed her head and for the first time in maybe twelve years, began a genuine prayer. "Dear Heavenly Father, I pray for your forgiveness for my trespasses. Please forgive me for shutting you out, and for breaking your commandment, even though you want me to go back and break it again... Hmm.. I pray that Anna is okay. God, please let her be okay. I just miss her so much I almost can't stand it. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray, Amen."

"Amen." Her parents echoed.

"You are forgiven my sweet child. Anna is fairing well. I am sorry for what has been done to you. You have been forced into great power Elsa, but I will help you through it. For everyone born of God overcomes the world."

"That's my favorite scripture." Elsa's father sighed into her ear and he squeezed her tighter before he finally let go, and his wife followed suit.

"Anna's is 'Love conquers all'." Elsa murmured to herself with self realization.

"How else would she had known how to save you, or herself for that matter?" God went on to say, stepping closer to Elsa, outstretching His hands to grasp her shoulders. He pushed His face very close to hers and whispered softly, but His voice still sounded like rushing water. "She prays for you, everyday, without fail. Don't let her down."

Then he pressed His mouth to hers and let out a giant breath through her, and she instantly felt warm inside, and her eyelids slid down and her vision disappeared completely. She was in blissful peace, floating in the dark once more.

* * *

Her eyelids flew open and she willed a harsh gasp of air into her reborn lungs. The taste of smoldering flesh seared her tongue and she coughed violently at the added smoke she also inhaled with the dank, foul air. She bolted up from the ground and looked all around her as she still coughed out the smoke. It had been a while, but not that long. Everywhere she looked there were dead bodies, drenched in blood. Many were decapitated, disfigured, or just plain unrecognizable as human beings, that's how mutilated they were. Then she heard a howling laugh echo to her right and she saw three bodies falling precariously from an unseen mountain top. It was covered by thick fog and clouds.

Elsa grimaced at the faint sound of their bodies smacking into the ground, and her stomach churned at the small sounds of bones cracking in half. Then she looked down at herself. She rose her arms and studied them, seeing how they looked. Nothing was fractured, and nothing was broken. She pranced in place and found that she was fully movable. Her body was healed, she was back.

_"The Kiss of Life." _A solid voice whispered in her ear, and she understood at once the memory of her departure.

_"I'm right here with you. I will _never_ leave you."_

"Good, we've got work to do." Elsa stated out loud to no one and she began to hurry towards a more safe place instead of standing out in the open.

She began to formulate a plan as she jogged over to a tiny little cave, just big enough for her to stuff herself in to. She would search for her soldiers, then find a way to acquire some dragons and with them she would storm the castle. It seemed too easy, but it was all she could think of. Better to go out giving your all, she supposed. She knew that laugh she heard just before was Viktor's, so somewhere between her dying and then coming back he's made it up there to begin a celebration and that's when it hit her.

_"There's no one left Elsa." _God whispered in her ear again.

"Damn it!" She shouted out, not caring if anyone heard her. She was filling up with rage as her blood began to boil inside her. She looked at her armor and saw that most of was pretty much destroyed. It was mostly melted and you could see the undergarments underneath, completely shredded apart in some places. You could see big patches of her skin, with no trace of any injury, but the blood from when they occurred still stained it. She didn't try and fix it though, she just slammed her head back against the rocky wall she was sulking by, and the pain from the sharp contact shivered down her spine. "How long was I out for?" She demanded angrily.

_"Two hours, for you."_

"What? But it felt like a couple of minutes..."

_"Time doesn't exist to me. I am eternal."_

"Well, isn't that just great."

_"You need to move, it's not safe here." _Elsa heard the shuffling of feet and of claws. The ground began to quake at the steps of a the nearby dragon.

She got up quickly and poked her head out of her tiny little cave to try and see who was out there. 'Well, how do I get out of here then?"

_"Did you forget you are a sorceress all of the sudden?"_

"No. I just don't like using my power to hurt people."

_"How un-human of you."_

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

_"Just an observation."_

"Fine, have it your way." Elsa boldly stepped out form behind the her hiding place and took a strong stance and before the hunters could react she had already frozen them in place. The ice crept up from their feet and up to their legs, continuing on to their chests, but they didn't show any signs of fear. Viktor had trained them well.

Elsa then focused on the dragon who had already broken free of the ice at it's feet. She formed a spear if ice and chucked it at the wild beast and it struck it's mark, hitting it on the meaty part of it's left forearm and it stopped prancing to try and scratch the spear out from it's body. Elsa rushed towards it, chucking more spears at it with all her strength, always aiming for it's arms and legs. Dragons don't need limbs to fly after all.

The captive men all shouted and hollered in hope of drawing attention their way as Elsa made to steal the dragon from them. They were tasked with retrieving her body after Viktor succeeded in slaying her army.

Elsa finally subdued the dragon well enough to climb upon it an sat upon it's saddled neck and then announced gleefully to her audience below, "Behave now boys!" Then she kicked at the dragon and it roared begrudgingly at the command, but still began to flap it's mighty wings all the same, not being able to disobey.

Elsa and her dragon ascended into the sky and the higher they went the clearer it became and finally Elsa could breath in unpolluted air. "To King Viktor's castle. I've some unfinished business to attend to." She commanded kicking at the dragon again, and the dragon roared in submission.

The journey to the castle of Adalinda was much more easy on dragon, as Loki had known when he first set up the kingdom. It would be a treacherous excursion by foot, as Peter, Abejide , and their mountain guide had come to find when they made the trek up there. Abejide almost died twice on the way. By dragon it took less than a few minutes. By foot, it took three days.

Elsa delighted in the sensation of the wind whizzing past her, dancing in her free flowing hair. It was completely calm up there in the air. There was no distractions, no worries, just clouds, and the occasional peaking through of the sun, and Elsa grinned madly at every glimpse of it. She thought having powers over the ice and snow was amazing. Riding a dragon though? Through the skies, under the warm sun and through the chilly, damp clouds? _And _having ice powers? That was indescribable. She felt powerful to say the least. Unstoppable. Invincible.

"Does Viktor name you dragons?" She asked as she started to come down from her euphoria, but still being ditsy enough to ask a dragon a question, as if it could respond.

"Yes." Elsa's wide eyes went even more wide at the clear, heavy voice of the dragon in her mind.

"Did you just say yes?" She asked out loud, incredulously.

"Yes. I have known the human language for thousands of years." The dragon affirmed, again in her mind.

"Wow... That's amazing... What's your name then?"

"It does not have a human translation. The only dragon name that can be translated is Afanasy's."

"Yeah, I know. It means immortal. I just want to know your's though. I don't need a translation."

"My name is Hzthala."

Elsa gasped at the beauty of which the dragon pronounced it's name. Elsa knew she would never be able to pronounce it as majestically.

"And your's is Elsa."

"How do you know that?"

"Whenever a human rides upon me we become one in mind. I can see everything you are thinking. I can hear you conversing with your God."

"Really?"

_"Yes." _God answered for her. _"Dragons are my creation, Elsa. Mankind ruined them."_

"He's correct. We should have never let your kind awe us with their valor, but they all had such big hearts back then. They were mostly all to be trusted."

"Am I to be trusted?" Elsa asked innocently.

"You want to kill my master, my brother. I do not wish to trust you."

"But, if I don't he'll take over the world. He will kill everyone I love, and hold dear. He'll destroy everything."

"You say that like it's a bad thing." Hzthala remarked sarcastically.

"The end of the world is a very bad thing!"

"The end of _your_ world would be a very good thing."

"How can you say that? Viktor is going to wipe us out! My friend Peter told me everything about him, and how he has this grand plan to dominate the earth and make it his. How can you stand behind a monster like that!?"

"Easy, he is my brother. He was born from a dragon. I will follow his plan to the end."

"Then why do you obey me?"

"We gave up our freedom long ago. When we first taught your kind our tongue you unknowingly used it against us. We are now bound like slaves to you. I must bend to your will."

Elsa sat there in silence, letting everything soak in. Her hard gaze was set upon the incoming castle. "Why did you tear out your heart?" She finally asked. It would be the only chance to ask, as they were quickly approaching their destination.

"Afanasy commanded us to. He knew you would try and freeze them to control us. You can only control one dragon at a time, by riding us, but elementals could control multiples of us at a time when they froze our hearts."

"How are you alive then? You can't live without a heart..."

"You've never tried it before. You wouldn't understand."

Again Elsa was stunned into silence. Then a gasp tore through her as a massive bulb of flame just missed her. She snapped her head around and saw three incoming dragons coming at her fast. Without a command Hzthala turned around and shot at them with fire, already feeling Elsa yelling at her to do so. Elsa squeezed her knees hard against the saddle to keep her steady on the thrashing dragon's body and she raised her hands in front of her and she formed a giant sphere of ice and fired it at the three of them and they all dispersed to avoid it, and Elsa just went on in that fashion, creating more and more spheres to throw as Hzthala roared out rockets of flame at them to protect her.

Elsa finally struck the dragon at the right of the other two in the wing and tore a hole through it with her massive bullet and the dragon had trouble staying up in the air with it's damaged wing, and so Elsa concentrated on destroying that one first. She relentlessly sent chunks and bombs at it, and surely it began to fall through the clouds as it's wings grew more and more injured. A grin beamed madly from Elsa sweaty face, but it quickly vanished as two more dragons came flying up to take it's place.

"Well shit!" She ducked just in time before being burnt to a crisp, then she looked up and a crazy, utterly insane idea came to mind. She jumped up to her feet and took a second to gain her balance. Then she got in her stance like before, and inhaled a smoke filled breath, concentrating all her will and power, then she exhaled and unleashed an unholy blizzard upon them all and a scream ripped it's way out from her lungs. Hzthala roared out fire as Elsa hailed out ice and the dragons didn't stand a chance and they either began to freeze or sizzle, but they wouldn't back down and pushed forward, not knowing what defeat felt like.

"HELP ME!" Elsa cried out to the heavens and a fresh surge of energy rushed through her and a warm sensation coated her skin as God flowed His power through her body and her storm increased in intensity, but still more dragons were seeing what was happening above them and went to aid their brothers and sisters. Before she knew it Elsa was battling against at least fifty dragons, all of them feebly trying to blast her with wrathful flames.

"There's too many of them!" She cried out again, and now her body was feeling worn out as she forced her will as hard as she possibly could.

_"Then stop fighting against them." _This time Elsa didn't know if it was God or Hzthala that was talking to her, it could have been wither one at this moment. It sounded like something both of them would say.

Elsa screamed in agony as her muscles burned against her skin from overexertion, and then she dropped her arms to her sides, and everything went still. No one advanced, and no one made a move, save for the dragons flapping their tattered wings to keep them aloft in the air.

She took in heaping breaths and collected her thoughts in a frantic scavenger hunt and strung together an argument, trying hard not focus on how she was going to try and make dragons, a once thought mystical creature, see reason with her.

"Stop this! All this blood shed! What is it for anyway? Your own brother has made you shed your own blood! He made you tear out your hearts so that you may live! But, what is life without a heart! A cold and loveless one. How can you stand with someone who can not love?... Love conquers all!" After declaring her argument she panted as she brought back air into her, and her body became a frenzied fire with anxiety as she stared into the dragon's eyes, waiting for a response. Any kind of response! Their stares were hard and cold and only fueled her frenzied body more.

"You know what he plans to do! He doesn't want to rule mankind. Do you want to live alone, with one man, your opposed brother, you _**half** _brother for the rest of eternity? You know what he's going to do! He has lied and tricked you for thousands of years to get you to submit and surrender yourselves to him! You can not tell me, that you, these wise beasts of nature, are blind to his mad, blood stained plans. Fight with me, and I can promise a world of peace for you. You can live in harmony with us. We won't control you anymore, and you can live free. The gods are dead! But mine is not! He is your True Creator! He will protect you from us! From my people, my race! Your brother only wishes to useyou to fulfill his own selfish plans! Who's to say he won't turn against you and destroy you after he has succeeded?"

Doubt finally penetrated them all in a long ripple through the flying crowd. One of them grunted, seeing her validity in her argument and mentally passed along his acknowledgement. He could hear the honesty in her voice. There was no shroud covering it like in Viktor's. He believed her, and he roared with allegiance. His brothers and sisters looked to him as they mulled over the human woman's words, and they too found them to be clear like crystal, free of distraction or hidden deception. They were heartfelt. They all began to roar, one by one, then faster, multiple at a time, all until even Hzthala roared with them, deafening Elsa with their change of patronage. A giant grin contorted her face and she threw her fists into the air at her accomplishment, only then believing in herself that she was truly powerful, invincible. She now had dragons, once thought mystical, pretend creatures, on her side.

"ALL RIGHT THEN! LET'S GO PAY YOUR DEAR BROTHER A VISIT!" She plopped herself back down on the saddle and commanded Hzthala to turn back towards the castle and Elsa's newly transformed hoard followed close behind and beside her, encasing her with their protection, and on they sped to their new fate.

_"I think you should rewrite that verse." _She smiled as she conversed to God in her mind.

_"And to what should I rewrite?" _He obliged, already knowing what she meant.

"For those born of God overcome everything." She fully said aloud, and Hzthala grunted gladly in agreement and Elsa laughed out wildly as God responded.

_"We'll see."_

* * *

**I really enjoyed writing this chapter because I got to flesh out my own doubts on my Christian faith. I'm writing this story based on the vague timeline that Disney employed for it, which is around the late 1800's, and Norway was mostly converted by then. Plus, when Elsa was coronated it was done in a little chapel of sort, which gave me the freedom to assume that she was Christian. I hope you guys liked it as much as I did. I thought it would be very obvious that she would strongly doubt the existence of God and I still want her to feel doubtful in it, but her faith is growing a little more strong now, but it will never be fully healed.**


	24. Beyond

Viktor looked up at the sound of rushing and beating wings and his lips curled with a smile as he saw who led them, Hzthala, but not just her, no his beloved granddaughter as well. She was valiantly flying towards his castle with a sword of crystallized ice held high in her hand, fracturing the sun's beams as it's light poured down upon him. The warmth of the sun scolded him slightly as he never felt the sun very often so high in the dense clouds.

"Well, it looks like I'm not the only one Loki prefers, men!" Viktor laughed out and caused his servants to stop dropping the already rotting bodies of Elsa's army over the edge of their mountain and look up at the gathering of dragons speeding their way.

"They'll turn on her, just you wait. Water isn't always thicker than blood." Viktor said with complete certainty. "Just keep having fun. I will take care of the little ol' queen. And do not interfere."

"Yes, my Lord!" They all shouted back while saluting to him.

Viktor simply went back into his castle from the balcony he was on, which led back into his throne room. It looked over all of Adalinda and the mountains so he could keep an eye out on Germany as it progressed through time and prosperity. He strode up to his colossal throne and sat down with the air of a god surrounding his regal figure, and there he waited for the inevitable.

There were no screams or shrieks to be heard when the north wall came crumbling down as, now hundreds, of dragons, his own half siblings, came crashing through it. The large balcony fell to the weight of the beasts when they tried to rest on it and down went the rest of Elsa's army and Viktor's own servants who were attending to them. The force that blew from the flapping of the dragon's wing destroyed a large portion of the castle, from that throne room up four stories and three below. The ceiling was blown away and the floor began to crumble into pieces, but it stopped at the foot of Viktor's throne, and there Viktor still sat. Completely calm, with an amused look shining in his eyes.

Hzthala landed inside where the doorway leading in from the balcony used to be, and Elsa leapt off without fear to the fragile marble floor. She still had her sword in her hand, gripping it so tight her knuckles turned snow white, and the white seemed even more bright with her dried blood caked onto them.

She stood up for him to see her in all her tattered and shredded glory. Her left shoulder was completely bare as was most of her left side. The forearm guards were gone from both her arms, and her right boot was fried and blackened from being attacked just a moment ago. Her hair blew about wildly from the tempest behind her, illuminated from the glowing sun, casting it's light down on her and she looked divine despite her damaged appearance. She looked like an angel ready for round two. Viktor was happy to oblige.

"So! My little girl has decided to grace me with her presence once more! How noble."

"Shut the _fuck_ up." Elsa snarled at him.

"Oh! My baby's learned some colorful words. Well, I still won't be going anywhere except dancing on your grave my dear one." He snickered, still sitting spread eagle on his chair.

"You already killed me once. How did that work out for you? _Grandpa_."

"Not very well, seeing as you are standing. And not to mention, standing with quite a few of my brothers with you." He gestured towards them playfully.

Then his face grew dark as shouted ruthlessly, "Zsylthei!" Come. The most powerful word in all the dragon's language. It would make anyone, be them human, dragon, or any other beast make them leave where they stood and come to the beckoning call.

No one moved.

Surprise flashed through his eyes brightly and very visibly.

"ZSYLTHEI!" He demanded again, jumping up to his feet. His eyes flaming at their disobedience.

Not even a flinch from them.

He became speechless.

He ripped his sword from it's scabbard and raged towards Elsa, raving mad at her insolence. She drew her sword back and her brow furrowed in concentration.

_"I want to take him myself."_ Elsa mentally urged her new army and they all silently agreed to let her have her prize. Time slowed considerably with her first bounding step. She felt the jolt of her foot slamming down travel up her body like a river of hammers. She pushed out her legs easily and primed her blade to swing until they reached each other and time exploded.

She swung and hit him directly in the chest but he paid no mind and hacked at her head with his broad sword. She ducked and thrusted again for his chest but he spun on his heel away and missed. He swung for her legs and she jumped just in time, never seeing him now behind her, but hearing the swoosh of the metal through the air.

She threw back her elbow and it contacted his jaw harshly and he reeled back only a few inches, already delivering a blow to her back, and his blade dug into the remaining ice of her armor. Her elbow knocking him off balance just enough to keep the blade from digging in any more.

With him still behind her she twisted her body around, concentrating on gathering all her strength in to her right leg as she brought it up and kicked him as hard as she could in the side. He faltered, and that was a terrible mistake on Elsa's part as his sword fell onto her left thigh, slicing it's way in deep. He pulled it out horizontally from the wound and she cried out in agony as the freezing air stung it and she saw little black dots and stars in her vision. But then a warm tingle feeling flowed through her leg and the pain vanished, but she couldn't move her leg still, it was too damaged.

Viktor took the opportunity to slash at her without mercy, and she blocked the first two strikes, but not the third as the tip of his sword swept across her torso and she cried out again, her face contorted with a grimace, as Viktor laughed maniacally at her pain.

He took a second to relish in her cries, letting them fuel him. Elsa watched through squinted eyes as he closed his for a second to bask in his little victory and she gathered her strength and froze her sword with an unbreakable covering of ice, and she swung at his legs. He may had had super human strength, but his body wasn't so strong. The ice was so cold it significantly aided in amputating his legs from under him, and down he fell. Finally, a shrilling shriek tore it's way out of his burning chest.

He fell onto his back and panted harshly, snot and spit flying from his nose and mouth like he was rabid. He could taste blood in his mouth from biting down on his tongue when he fell. He lifted his head to see what happened to him and he saw his legs, from the knee down, laying, severed in front of him.

A deep feeling of mixed emotions rustled through the dragons as they watched their master being felled. After thousands of years under his command of sleeping they were glad to see him losing, but then again... That was their brother. But then again, he had made them sleep for thousands of years, just to wait to be wakened and forced to rip out their hearts. They all started to feel faint as their rage against the world and it's human inhabitants was diminishing, the only thing that was keeping them alive. In the end, they agreed that their brother was using dirty tactics to win, so it was very pleasing to see him fall.

Growling noises rumbled deep in their throats and they grew into outright roars as they began to urge on Elsa. She felt so weak, and her leg was starting to throb again. She thought God was going to heal it, but it still bled out profusely and she felt herself getting colder from the loss of blood. She looked to it for a second and decided that it could be saved. If she made it out of here, she could make it out okay, she wouldn't die. Not by his hands again.

"YOU BITCH!" Viktor howled as the true pain of his wound coursed through him. He was gasping wildly trying to find his mind and his words. If her couldn't stand and fight, then he would sit and fight. He pushed himself up, falling back down four times, and Elsa just stood there, not being able to walk, but not wanting to fall in case she couldn't get back up. Finally Viktor got onto his bottom and raised his sword and with all his failing might he threw it at her, and she raised her own sword to block it, and it fell down, clattering on the floor.

"BITCH! YOU COWARD! YOU CAN'T FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN SO YOU KNOCK ME DOWN!" He roared out with a hoarse voice.

Now, Elsa fell to her knees. She let go of her icy sword and left it behind as she slowly crawled over to her victim, wincing at every move she made, as she had to drag her left leg behind her. She tried to keep her gaze on his red, sweaty face as he spewed out profanity with his croaking voice.

She crept up really close to him, and all the dragons went dead silent. She crawled up through his legs and Viktor snatched her throat roughly in his right hand squeezing it tight, but Elsa didn't struggle against him.

"You have caused the death of _thousands_ of _your_ people! What kind of queen does that make you?!" He spat out, blood and spit spraying on her face.

She simply narrowed her eyes and took her right hand and grabbed at his bulging penis, making sure to really wrap her hand around his testicles, and without another a moment to waste she punctured them with icicles from her finger tips and he released her throat as he reeled back in sheer torturing agony. He couldn't even breathe for a long while, and his eyes rolled back into his head. She watched him with an empty expression across her face. She wanted to delight in his suffering, but she wasn't in her right mind. She didn't even know what she was doing.

She retracted her icy claws and lifted her hand up to his throat, gripping it lightly at first. He was trying to say something, his last words no doubt.

"C-c-cunt." He whispered faintly, eyeing her one last time.

She gripped his throat tighter now, squeezing it as hard as she could, feeling his thyroid beginning to crush as she lifted him up by his neck until they were eye to eye. She brought her face close to his and then she brought her lips to his ear and she softly whispered just three little words.

"Let it go."

She punctured his neck, again with her ice claws, going so far as to penetrate it through and through and then she tore her claws away and didn't even give him a chance to let out at least a gargled last breath. His severed head fell to his lap in front of them, and then his body slumped back down on the cracked, bloody marble floor.

She saw his soul drift away from his chest, but it didn't go up, no it was suspended in the air for a moment before it descended straight down where Satan was waiting to welcome Afanasy for the first and only time.

Elsa just stared at the head of her enemy, not able to take her eyes off of it. His bright eyes were still open and they stared off towards his brothers and sisters. All of them still at the sight of his finally dead body.

"Elsa, stand up." God commanded gently through the chilly air.

"I can't. My leg." She deadpanned.

"Stand." He said more strong.

She closed her eyes and she felt out tired she was, how heavy she felt, but she still pushed herself up on her right leg and got to her feet, putting out her arms to steady her when she felt the blood rush to her head, what was left of it anyway.

"See. You can stand."

Warmth spread through her and she opened her eyes again. The realization of what she had done striking her in the heart and tears immediately welled up in her eyes.

"It is finished." God declared to ease her conscience.

Elsa just stared once more at the severed head of Viktor and felt a sob violently wrack her body. Her leg didn't hurt anymore. She put some pressure on it and it felt fine. She willingly looked down at it for a distraction form the atrocity in front of her and only saw blood, but no wound.

She turned away from Viktor's dead body and faced towards her dragons. They were all bowing down to her.

"You've done well Elsa."

"What ever you say."

"Do you feel like a monster?"

"Do you always ask questions you always know the answer to?"

"I want to hear you say it out loud." That orb from the void began to appear in front of her again, God's voice issuing from it. "Do you feel like a monster."

"Yes."

"Okay then." And with that the orb trailed off towards the dragons. They were all being crushed by their own bodies as their lives were drifting away. The orb entered into each dragon's chest simultaneously and their wounds from tearing out their hearts glowed with it's light as God healed them, replenishing them with new hearts.

"Okay then? Okay then! That's all you have to say!" Elsa shrieked out, storming over to the healing orb.

When the orb was finished and the dragon's were all able to fly back up to see their queen, it came back over to Elsa, transforming itself into a new figure, and Elsa's breath was strangled in her throat as it transformed into her father.

"The truth shall set you free." Her father said with God's voice. He was simply a vessel to carry God's spirit in a way Elsa would be able to comprehend. "As long as you believe in your own truth, the truth it shall be. Accept your sins and cast them away."

"I can't just _cast_ this away!"

"Even after all you've done, and you still don't believe in yourself."

"I'm not perfect! Even you made that abundantly clear! All my men and women that came to fight for me are dead! Because of me! That rat bastard is laying dead over there because of me! How can I go back home with all of this hanging over my head?!"

"Yes, how can a victorious leader ever return home after successfully winning her greatest battle?" God's voice faded out as He made her father's come through, and his eyes twinkled, but that just infuriated Elsa.

"I AM SERIOUS! I have no one to take back with me! I can't go back all by myself! What will my kingdom think?! That I'm a coward!"

"For killing a mad man?"

"For being the only one to come back! Why am I so fortunate to come back to life and they're not?!"

Her father came towards her to comfort her, but Elsa backed up, and tripped over Viktor's discarded body and she screamed in horror at the touch and sight of it. She clamped her eyes shut tightly and rolled off into an unknown direction to get away from it and she prayed for Death to take her too. Her mind was overwhelmed. She couldn't process anything. She just wanted to be home in bed and wake up already. She wanted Anna to wake her up and they'd go build that damn snowman, but she wouldn't hurt her sister this time, and they'd be able to grow up together.

"Anna. Anna. Anna." Elsa groaned as she pressed her knees to her chest, curling herself into oblivion. She tried to remember what she smelled like, what she sounded like, but her mind was too far gone as anguish seized her entire. "Anna. Anna. Anna."

Her father strode over to her shivering body and bent down to gather her in his arms. He picked her up and held her close to him, but she was already passed out, exhaustion, mentally, physically, and emotionally, taking it's final toll on her. He looked down at her face as it relaxed in her slumber and frowned at her distress.

"Don't worry Elsa. Papa's here. Papa will make everything alright." He cooed as he walked over to the healed dragons.

"Go and find all of her army and bring them to the battle field. Don't worry about any detached limbs, just bring as much of their bodies as you can." He ordered in a fierce voice, and the dragons all took flight at once to fulfill their task.

My how times have changed. Before they fell asleep all they wanted was to exterminate the humans. But now they were going to help them. The dissonance rebounded off their brains and flitted away from them like lively butterflies.

They scoured the landscape, only seeking out the Arendellians to bring back. Many of them were severely disfigured, but they heeded the instruction to just bring the mass of the body and not the missing limbs.

The searching dragons called out for all the others that were abroad, terrorizing the earth at Viktor's behest. _**"Afanasy is dead. He will rise no more. Come home. We have a task to attend to."**_

The rogue dragons all stopped pillaging and broiling the kingdoms and villages they were settled in and looked up to the sky at hearing the call. They leapt into the air leaving the burning ground for the humans to quench themselves, and they went to return home, all the millions of them. They darkened the sky with their numbers in some areas and to some that was more terrifying than the destruction they had caused, because they didn't know why they were flying overhead. Were they going to come back? Were they just tricking them and they were going to come back full force once more?

With Elsa still in His arms, her father floated them down to the foot of the towering mountain, and traversed across the body speckled ground to get to a clearing up ahead. He find a clear enough spot and He stood among the billowing weeds as they tickled His shoes and the hem of His slacks looking out to the sky for the dragons that were returned to drop the dead bodies around him in a heaping pile. The smell was extremely offensive and almost woke Elsa up, but asleep she stayed after fussing for a moment. He kissed her forehead sweetly, then He swept the hair away from her face and He combed it back with his fingers.

When her father was alive he never had many chances to baby her like that. She was always trying to be a big girl. She was always trying to prove how strong she was despite her blatant Achilles heel. Her mother was really the only one who got to see her broken down in despair when she had a nightmare in the middle of the night and awoke to a dusting of frost on her damp skin.

"My brave little princess, has become a queen." God let her father come through completely for a moment to be with her and he studied her with adoration and pride at how she came to grow up to be. "You're not my little girl anymore are you?" He asked with a wistful smile and then he conceded to God taking back over the body.

It took almost half an hour to gather all of the dead bodies when all Viktor's dragons returned to help. It took so long because they would run into his soldiers that were coming to chase them and subdue them again, but they quickly were gobbled up in flame until they were all wiped out, and the kingdom of Adalinda was officially demolished, desolated, to be forgotten forever.

When they had finally finished they threw the bodies in the already formed heap and flew back behind it and they all covered the land for miles with their numbers, coating the land in shiny, black scales that reflected the sun back up to the sky. God looked to the giant pile of rotting bodies and then with four words they started rumbling and shifting around and changing. "Let there be life." And there was life.

Limbs grew from where they were hacked off. Wounds sutured themselves shut. Clothes wrapped back around the bare bodies. Then God let out a heavy breath and it traveled into each soldier's mouth and stretched their collapsed lungs open and set their brains into motion, summoning their souls back into them. They were going to be okay. They would remember fighting, and they would remember dying, but they wouldn't remember Heaven, and they wouldn't remember how they came back to life. That wasn't important. All that mattered was that Elsa didn't return alone.

God watched as they all came back to life, gasping for breath, relishing int the sweet sensation. When they awoke they were all organized in neat rows, laying side by side. They sat up slowly, surveying the land around them, trying to recall where they were. The Zugspitze mountains. Adalinda.

A few yelped at the sight of the dragons studying them, but a warm feeling of peace overcame them and they turned to see an orb of light. Dazed and confused, they all stood up. The orb began to float towards them, but then flew over their heads. They all followed it's path with their gleaming eyes and saw it was heading towards the dragons and they felt the strong urge to follow it. The danger of the situation sedated by the rush of excitement of what the orb was tacitly commanding them to do; ride them.

God watched them go into a trot, then a log, and then a full out sprint for the dragons. The dragons inched their way towards the running humans and accepted their next task begrudgingly. They thought the act of being ridden was already in the past, but no. "Just one last time." God assured them in their minds as the soldiers clambered onto them.


	25. The Foreground

"Anna! Anna!" Kristoff shouted half way with glee and the other half with confusion. He bounded through the burning castle's halls to return to Peter's room. He left to see why all the noise had stopped so suddenly after over an hour of mass destruction and chaos had ensued.

He was running out of breath and most of his energy trying to get back to his frantic wife, and he was grateful to see her opening the door, hearing him from quite some distance away.

"Are they gone?!" She asked halfway crouching behind to door to protect herself from what ever imminent threat she thought was around.

"Yeah!" They just left! Like really... They just all left, all at once." His voice was still excited even though he was gasping and panting. He was leaning over, with his hands on his knees trying to regain his breath, and Anna made him come back inside and sit at the foot of the bed so he could calm down.

"So, is that a good thing or a bad thing though?" Anna asked quietly, her voice drenched with the fear of uncertainty. She went to pour Kristoff a glass of water from the pitcher sitting on the night stand next to the bed. She handed him the glass and he gulped the whole thing in a couple of swigs.

"I would think good! How could it be bad?" Peter inquired blindsided.

Anna looked at him with a face that look like he just kicked Sven or Olaf, like he betrayed her.

"Maybe they're coming back? Maybe Viktor called them back to defeat Elsa because she's beating him? What if they overpower her now?!" Anna grew more and more loud and furious with each passing word.

Peter just tried to shrink as far into the pillows and blankets he could as Anna stared at him with steaming eyes.

"Or, maybe she's won, and they've recognized the death of Viktor, so they're going home to mourn him." Kristoff suggested timidly.

"You don't think a bunch of mournful dragons are gonna wanna kill the person responsible for the death of their king?" Anna raged on, and she started to pace around the room.

"Anna!" Kristoff jumped off from where he sat and went over to the pacing Anna, stopping her and pulling her close to him. "I'm sure she's doing just fine. She does have ice powers after all! How do you beat someone with ice powers?"

"Fire. Lots and lots of fire. Like dragons have. Dumbass."

"Hey!" He cried out a little hurt.

Anna tore herself away from him. "I can't calm down Kristoff! That's my sister over there! And I can't help her! I can't see her, I can't do anything for her!"

"Well, there is one thing you could do."

"Oh?! And what would that be?" She hollered, finally looking at him again.

"Start preparations to rebuild the west corridor..."

"What? W-" Her pupils overtook her irises and she bolted out the door and Kristoff followed after her to stop her from doing anything stupid.

"Anna! Anna come back!"

She pushed herself even harder to get further away from him. What was wrong with the west corridor? She could smell burnt wood and charred stone. Her heart pounded against her ribs violently. Then she saw the sky, gray and black from soot and smoke. She shouldn't have been able to see the sky yet. The whole west side of the castle was gone. By being crashed and burnt down, it was nothing but rubble and embers.

"Where is everybody?! Are they okay?! Did they make it out?! Why didn't we hear this?!" Anna bawled out as her body shook uncontrollably. She stopped in her tracks and surveyed the damage for a moment, literally trying to hold herself together.

"I don't know if everyone made it out. It looks like the fire went out by itself though." Kristoff was too busy looking out at the destruction to notice Anna had already gone. "Wait, where'd you-" He snapped his head around in every direction and saw her red hair going down a crumbing hallway, about ready to cave in on itself. "ANNA, NO!" He went after her in a dead sprint. She was going down the hallway that led to her parents room. It was so close to ground zero... She had to see if it was still there. It had to be, it just had to be. For the love of everything holy, it had to still be there.

Kristoff chased after her, screaming for her to stop and that was his mistake. The waves coming from him disturbed the tiniest of cracks in the ceiling which vibrated against bigger ones, until big chunks were rattling and then finally giving out and with all of Kristoff's strength he leapt over the distance to Anna and tried to push her out of the way, but he was a split second too late.

One chunk got her on her leg stretched behind her, and she spun out until another tumbling chunk fell and crashed upon her head and she fell like a bag of bricks, her gasping breath lost within her lungs.

"ANNA!" Kristoff bellowed, lying on his stomach, just behind Anna, also lying on her stomach, the only difference being that she wasn't choking on the dust in the air, which was a very bad sign. He scrambled onto his hands and knees and crawled over to her as more pieces of the ceiling came crashing down. He pulled her limp body onto his lap and then searched for a safer place and his eyes landed on two giant oak doors. He scooped her up into his arms and fled to the doors and rammed his shoulder against them make them budge only a little. He grunted at the smarting pain in his now bruised shoulder, but backed up and tried again and this time made it through.

He quickly threw her onto the abandoned bed as carefully as he could, but still very dangerously. He just wanted to get the doors closed as soon possible. He strained his sore arms and finally got the heavy doors closed in perfect time. The rumbling stopped outside, and his idea worked. The doorway was strong enough to stay upright and keep the energy from flowing through it, and the ceiling didn't crack anymore. They were safe.


	26. I don't wanna pray to my maker

God walked down the hall, Elsa still fast asleep in His arms. He looked around at the ruins of which he walked through with ease and he willed the wall to reconstruct themselves. Just one more token for Elsa. She deserved it.

Kristoff heard the sound of stone running and smacking against each other and he got up from the bed and went to the door. He mulled over every negative repercussion of opening it and decided to just go for it. Anna was far away on the bed. She would be safe. He strained but time the doors opened a little more easy since it had been used before a few hours ago, it's hinges a little more loose.

Kristoff became blinded as holy light flooded him, cloaking him in warmth from its radiance. He lifted a hand to block it from his sore eyes and squinted to see where it was coming from.

God dimmed Himself enough so Kristoff didn't have to block his eyes and see who was coming. Kristoff's jaw fell to the floor as he saw the dead king coming towards him. Charles, may he rest in peace.

"It is alright Kristoff."

"How does he know my name?!"

"I am God. I know all." Kristoff's jaw fell through the ground.

He strode forward and Kristoff got out of His way. He eyed Anna laying comfortably under the old dusty covers on the bed and went to place Elsa next to her slumbering sister.

"Don't worry about Anna. She'll be fine. Just a knock to the head, and we both know she has a thick skull."

Kristoff nervously laughed despite his state of utter awe at God, transfigured to look like the old dead king, tucking Elsa into bed.

"They will both be okay. Elsa is just tired. I'll ruin the surprise for you; she won." He lightheartedly joked as He passed His hand through the eldest daughter's platinum blonde hair, for Charles' sake, and then stroked Anna's soft freckled cheek for him as well and Charles rejoiced up in Heaven.

"She's a fighter, but again, we both knew that as well. In time she will awaken, and I would appreciate it if they awoke to one another. I have such a soft spot for siblings. Ever since Cain and Able, I just can't get enough of people being so close."

"But didn't Cain... Kill Able?" Kristoff asked, his voice trailing off into a whisper at the end.

"Yes. Yes, he did." God straightened up and left the girls alone to sleep, and went up to Kristoff,who was still standing by the door. "That's what made me fall in love with the concept. Cain was just furious that he wasn't as good as his brother. Siblings are guides, and Cain was just a rowdy tourist. Parents pass and friendships die, but siblings are eternal."

Kristoff was speechless and he just stared at Him blankly, and God just smiled at his innocence. "I am going to let them sleep. They will stir sometime tomorrow, I will leave the time up to them. You can move them if you would like though."

"O-okay." Kristoff stammered out as confidently as he could. God then gently patted him on the shoulder and with one last warm smile he vanished. Kristoff found it easier to breathe again when He left.

He just stood there for a moment to collect his thoughts and remember how to move again. Then the idea struck him and he left to find someone to help him.

"How did this happen? It was just all destroyed!"

"This is a miracle!"

"Amazing..."

Kristoff came across three men, all gawking at the fixed walls and hallways.

"Hey! Could one of you guys come help me?" He called out to them as he ran up to them, and they all slowly shifted their faces towards his direction.

"With what?" The second man asked.

"Elsa is back! She's in her parents room, her and Anna both. I just need help carrying Elsa."

"The queen?!" The first man blurted out with disbelief.

"When did she get back? How did she get back without-" The third man started to say, but then distant roars shot through the air and penetrated the newly fixed castle walls, and all four of the men looked into the direction of them, then they looked to each other, fear painting their faces white, and then Kristoff went off to find a window or exit somewhere nearby. He passed by tow large walls of glass, but he couldn't see anything, so he kept going, the three men running after him as well. Kristoff kept going until he came to the exit leading out into the center courtyard.

He pushed through the doors and came out onto the healed, green grass and looked to the sky and his fears were confirmed. Dragons. But, they weren't attacking... They were just passing by overhead, but then the view was cut off my the rest of the towering castle. The four men all swore they saw people riding them, and... waving to them... Like they knew them.

"What of the ships they took though?" The third man asked, not noticing everyone else had retreated back inside, running to the gates.

They could hearing massive cheering coming up ahead and that pushed the men to move faster. Servants and guards joined in on the run to the open gates and some stopped when they saw the sight of them, Arendelle's military riding on top of dragons as they landed in front of the castle. The others ran even harder to get to them.

Before his dragon even got it's claws on the cobblestone the General hopped off and bolted for the coming temporary king.

"She's done it! Viktor's dead! Viktor's dead!" He shouted happily, a smile cracking his face for the first time in decades as he bounded toward Kristoff. "I don't know where she is though! She didn't ride back with us!"

"It's okay, she's here! She's inside asleep!"

"But how?" The general panted harshly when he finally reached Kristoff, and Kristoff reciprocated.

"God..." Kristoff shrugged weakly and the General only nodded.

Kristoff eventually remembered what he first had set out to do and got help to carry Elsa and Anna down to Peter's room. Peter about fainted with joy as a guard brought her in.

"Let's put them in this bed." Kristoff suggested towards the empty one, still pushed up to Elsa's old one that Peter was getting out of, and the guard went to follow the instruction. Peter came over and pulled away the covers so the two could put the girls in underneath them and Kristoff noticed how well Peter was moving about.

"You're doing very well today Pete."

"My fiancee's home, hell yeah I'm doing very well today! She's alive! She's okay." Peter laughed gleefully, a smile indented into his cheeks, and he pulled up the blanket over Elsa when the guard stepped away from her. Kristoff started to tuck Anna in as well.

"Fiancee?" He asked with a cryptic smile.

"Yeah, it was two years ago when we mentioned it... The past has passed. It's time for the future." Peter replied gazing down at Elsa's serene face.

Kristoff chortled as he kissed Anna on the cheek, and Peter took much offense to it. "What's so funny?"

"It's just funny that they both have have taste in ordinary men. I thought princesses dreamed about marrying princes, not ice harvesters and bakers."

"Oh... Well, that is funny." Peter smiled a little as he looked back down at Elsa.

"Now it's time to explain some things..." Kristoff began and Peter hesitantly looked up to him, kind of feeling where the conversation was going to go, but not really. "So... Are you a religious man Peter?"

Kristoff explained what had happened before as best as he could, and Peter understood it all for the most part. He understood that Elsa needed to rest, he of all people understood how important rest was. He felt terrible for Anna, what with almost being crushed to death if it weren't for Kristoff being able to push her away just enough, and he agreed that she needed to stay asleep too. The whole thing with God showing up as Elsa and Anna's dad threw him for a loop and he couldn't quite catch it. It was just too... inconceivable. Coming from a man who was tortured by another man that was literally half dragon, Kristoff thought he was being a little too hardheaded but he didn't press the issue any further.

"So, I guess it's just you and me for dinner tonight?" Peter joked after letting everything sink in for a bit and Kristoff's chuckle was interrupted by someone knocking at the door. Then the door opened without another warning and Georg came in without an apology or announcement or anything. He looked at the two men and then looked to the two lumps on the bed nearby and his eyes lit up as he ran to them.

"She is back! Well, we need her to get up and say something to the people! Let them know what has happened!" He uttered much too fast for comprehension as he shook at Elsa's body to rouse her back to consciousness. Peter stormed over to him and he was delighted at the fact that he was finally strong enough to do something whatsoever, like grabbing Georg and tearing him away from Elsa.

"She needs to sleep!" Peter hissed, and Georg shot him with a dirty look and tried to get back over to her.

"No one else is sleeping! And can you believe it! The whole entire army survived! They are all back! All of them!" Georg shouted, shaking Elsa again, but she was under too deep. Not even an apocalypse would've wakened her.

"I'll handle it Georg. I'll say something on her behalf." Kristoff proposed as he came over to tear Georg away. He gave Peter a sympathetic look to calm Peter's seething rage, and Peter huffed out in frustration, but was glad for the sympathy anyway.

"It would be an honor, as my last act as king, to speak on her behalf. I mean look! Even after all your shaking and our yelling she hasn't woken up! Not even Anna, although I'm not surprised. It's actually very hard to wake her up."

"Do you even know the first thing about speeches? Do you even know what happened?! Has she been awake to tell you?!"

"She won, and that's all Arendelle needs to know right now." Kristoff's voice went heavy and his eyes went dark. He even went so far as to stretched himself as straight and as tall as he could to gain an extra two inches over the three he already held over Georg's head, and Georg knew he was beat.

"Fine then! Just follow me." Georg grunted bitterly, marching towards the door with purpose. Peter grabbed at Kristoff's arm, trying to think of something encouraging to say, but instead said, "What are you gonna say?"

"Come now!" Georg shouted outside the door, but still marching on expecting Kristoff to be at least behind him shortly.

Kristoff looked out in the door's direction as he was hollered for, and then looked back to Peter and answered, "I have no clue."

Then he broke away and hurried at the door, but still managed to hear Peter say, "Ordinary men indeed." and he smirked as he tried to catch up to the speeding, steaming Georg.

Peter would've gone with him, but he knew someone needed to stay with the princess and queen, in case they wake up. He never thought that he'd ever be in the position to explain passed current events to either a knocked out queen or princess before. He was slowly realizing that he was much more than just an ordinary man as he went back over to Elsa, but he didn't sit down beside her or anything. He just stayed standing up. It didn't hurt to be on his feet anymore, and he was so tired of sitting and laying down.

After a few moments of adoring her peaceful face he finally noticed that she wasn't wearing one of her casual dresses, or even the ice armor Anna described when she first left. She was wearing white clean linen. He lifted up her blanket a little and looked under to see that she was wearing a robe. He thought that was very strange as he placed the blanket back down and tucked her back nice and snug. The whole God thing felt a little more plausible to him.


	27. Blue skies are coming

It was more the smarting pain than the early sun light leaking onto her closed eyelids that made Anna's eyes flutter open. For a few moments the world was small and fuzzy to her. When it focused in she saw the pale face, it's owner's forehead pressed against her own. She stared at it absentmindedly, patiently waiting for her brain to make some kind of connection. All the while the throbbing pain in her head began to align with her heartbeat. She grimaced as her conscious swam back to the front of her groggy mind, but then her face exploded with contorting joy when she finally recalled who's face was right in front of her.

"ELSA!" She all but screamed. Then she shoved one arm underneath Elsa's neck and threw her other one around Elsa's middle and she squeezed her tightly against her. Anna clung on to Elsa's tunic to keep her afloat admist her swelling seas of blissful euphoria, and over and over she cried out her big sister's name with a gargantuan grin stamped onto her face. She rocked Elsa back and forth in her arms and she placed loving kisses all over her hair and face. Elsa was still too exhausted to wake up at Anna's gleeful aggravations and that made Anna start to become very annoyed and irritated.

"Why aren't you waking up!" She demanded, but only got a soft tiny snore for a response and Anna couldn't help but grin again. She scooted herself up in a sitting position and she pulled Elsa up with her, keeping her pressed to her chest, and from then on she waited for Elsa to wake up.

She looked around and saw that she was Elsa's old room. The last thing she remembered was leaving it, and even that much was extremely vague. She'd left that room lots of times in the past week, and all the memories flooded together into one incoherent memory.

Then it struck her that it was just her and Elsa in the room. No Peter, or Kristoff, hell! Not even Olaf! Where were they? What time was it? When she looked back over to the window the sun rested itself in her eyes again and she winced from it's brightness. It was a bold orange, but it wasn't glowing yet, so it had just risen over the horizon, so it must be breakfast time.

But then the thought of how long she had to have been asleep hit a cord within her and fear crawled under her skin. It was bright the last time she remembered being awake, and now it's bright again.

"Was I out all day? Two days?" Oh God... A week? Like Peter?! What happened to me?" Every word grew more shrill and terrified from her racing voice, but all her thoughts came to a crashing halt when she felt movement on her shoulder, and she felt like she couldn't move her eyes fast enough to see.

Elsa shifted her head a little as Anna's shoulder wasn't the most comfortable pillow in the world. She tried to nuzzle her face deeper into Anna's neck but physics said that wasn't possible and that elicited an sleepy groan of discontent from Elsa.

The weight of sleep finally began to lift away from her eyes and Elsa opened them to see why she couldn't get more comfortable. She first saw pastel green sleeves, then a cream colored bodice, then fair light skin polka dotted with freckles and her heart jumped into her throat.

She hesitate bringing her eyes up any further. She had been dreaming for so long, that she forgot how to be awake. But, like all the other times before all this she pleaded, "For the love of God, holy be Thy name... Please don't tell me I'm dreaming." Then she felt a hand touch the bottom of her jaw and her face was lifted up, her eyes forced to finally see what they were afraid was going to be a trick, but even if it was Elsa was glad for it.

"You're not dreaming." Anna said softly, smiling warmly at the elated tears lining Elsa's eyes. "And neither am I." She felt pinpricks at the end of her nose and her eyes started to itch with their own tears.

Elsa simply laughed and drove her face back into Anna's neck and she squeezed her so hard she thought she was going to break one of Anna's ribs, but she was sure she wouldn't mind.

So many words zoomed through both their minds, but they were speeding by too fast to be pinned down long enough to be spoken, and so they just sat there holding each other desperately, basking in each other's warmth and love.

"I love you." Elsa finally got something in the hide tide of her mind and her words flowed out like molasses to make everything slow down and stick together.

"I love you more." Anna purred, kissing the top of Elsa's head again.

The sun washed over them but even still they didn't loosen their grips on one another, no matter how hot they were starting to get. Their stomachs grumbled but they mentally scolded them for making their presence known, but still they went on growling. Who knew sleep made you so hungry.

"I think our boys went to breakfast without us." Anna spoke.

"How inconsiderate." Elsa huffed out mockingly. "I haven't eaten in days."

"Really?" Anna asked, her voice dripping with concern.

"Not very well at least. It's been a hard couple of days." Elsa chortled, a smile spreading across her lips.

"I can imagine. I'm so happy you're back. I always know you'd come back. You did promise to anyway."

_**"You made a promise to your little sister Elsa... Don't let her down."**_Elsa's eyes widened passed possibility at God's haunting voice projected in her head.

After a few silent seconds Anna looked down to see what was the matter. "What's wrong Elsa?"

Elsa shook her head to get out of her tiny reverie and looked up at Anna's twinkling eyes, tears reforming again. "Nothing. Well, not nothing a guess." She cast her eyes down to the blankets, completely unsure of how to go about explaining everything exactly.

"It'll take a while, I know that. You take all the time you need." Anna said gently and placed one more kiss on top Elsa's head, and then hugged her tight.

"I saw mom and dad."

One eon. Two eon. Three eon. Five eon.

"W-what?" Anna choked out when her heart finally restarted.

"And Robert too..." Elsa looked back up at her and saw the most heartbreaking expression you could ever never want to witness. "I died, and I saw all three of them in Heaven. God sent me back down to finish Viktor though. And Peter told me about how you had a dream similar to mine before I left. God said that our gods were real, and they really did die. They gave me such strong powers in order to defeat Viktor, and God said that He didn't deal with magic, so He just let them do it."

"You saw Robert?" Anna choked out once more, shattering Elsa's heart even more. She was trying to get away from that subject damn it.

"Mother was carrying him..."

"Mom was carrying him?" Anna quietly asked in disbelief. "Papa was there too?"

Elsa gave a breathy snort and cracked a small wistful smile. She pulled herself away from Anna's trembling arms and sat up on her to take Anna into her own arms and Anna all but happily obliged as her body shook violently. "You're the one that came back from Heaven and hell and yet I'm the one breaking down." Anna said with a wobbly voice, trying to smile at the irony.

"Like you said. It'll take a while." Elsa smirked and passed a hand through her little sister's hair, combing it smooth. The sun was beginning to reach her ice blue eyes and set them on fire, and her stomach finally surrendered as Anna was pressing herself as hard as she could against her, knowing that food wasn't going near it for a good long while. But, a while was a wild understatement.


End file.
